In this episode, Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, joins 19th reporter, Jennifer Gerson, to discuss the powerful role of White suburban women in the fight against gun violence. Having played a key role in shifting the culture of gun violence, Shannon knows how White women can best serve movements that disproportionately impact communities of color. Shannon explains that no matter the outcome of the election, gun reform needs grassroots activism in the face of legislative inaction.
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On today’s episode
Our cohost
Jennifer Gerson is a reporter on The 19th’s breaking news team. She was also one of the founding editors of Jezebel.
Follow Jennifer Gerson on X @jenniferagerson.
Today’s guest
Shannon Watts is the founder of Moms Demand Action, the largest grassroots group fighting gun violence in the U.S. Known as the ‘summoner of women’s audacity,’ she has been named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People, a Forbes 50 over 50 Changemaker, and a Glamour Woman of the Year. She writes regularly for Substack and outlets like The Washington Post, Elle, Time, The 19th, with her next book expected in 2025.
Follow Shannon Watts on Instagram shannonrwatts and X @shannonrwatts.
Episode transcript
The Amendment podcast transcripts are automatically generated by a third-party website and may contain typos or other errors. Please consider the official record for The Amendment podcast to be the audio publicly available wherever you listen to podcasts.
Errin:
Hey y’all, it’s Errin. This episode is guest-hosted by my wonderful colleague at the 19th, Jen Gerson. We’ve been wanting to do an episode on the suburban White women vote for a while, and that topic is right up Jen’s alley. So I’m really, really excited to hear that conversation that she’s gonna bring y’all.
Jen:
Welcome to The Amendment, a weekly conversation about gender, politics, and power from the 19th News and Wonder Media Network. I’m Jennifer Gerson. I’m a reporter for the 19th, and I am so excited to guest host this week’s episode of The Amendment. I’ve been reporting on gun violence for over a year now. It remains one of the most pressing challenges in America today and will surely play a role in the 2024 election, which is why I really wanted to talk to Shannon Watts about it today. Shannon has been at the forefront of the fight for gun safety since 2012. She’s the founder of Moms Demand Action, a grassroots movement of Americans fighting for public safety measures that protect people from gun violence. Since its inception following the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Moms Demand Action has grown into one of the largest grassroots movements in the country over the years.
Jen:
They’ve had a significant impact on advocacy for stronger gun safety laws and working to close the loopholes that jeopardize our communities. But today’s conversation isn’t just about policy and advocacy. As we approach the 2024 election, the power and influence of White suburban women has never been more critical. This group of voters is sure to be a deciding factor in shaping the political landscape. Shannon Watts joins us to discuss the intersection of gun violence prevention and the electoral power of White suburban women and what life has looked like since she has stepped back from her leadership position at Moms Demand Action. Shannon, thank you so much for joining us today.
Shannon Watts:
Thank you.
Jen:
So, to start, I really wanna talk about what the conversation around gun safety looks like right now in our country, and also what’s being left out a lot in the day-to-day kind of conversations and news headlines. So first, when we talk about gun safety, we hear a lot about school shootings and a lot about kids, but it’s not just kids. And we know that when we start to look at the data, there’s a really significant intersection, for example, between gun violence and domestic violence. Homicide is the number one cause of maternal mortality in this country. More women are dying during pregnancy in the first year postpartum because of homicide more than anything else. And, more often than not, that’s homicide involving guns, most often in a domestic violence setting. I look at that and I see a lot of choices being made about public policy in this country. So I was wondering, from where you sit, what is it telling you about who’s being centered the most — not just in media narratives, but in policymaking — and where are you seeing lawmakers failing to intervene?
Shannon:
Well, you know, I go back to 2012 when I got involved in this issue, and I was a White woman who lived in the suburbs, and I had watched mass shooting tragedy after mass shooting tragedy happen — with our lawmakers doing really nothing in response, right? All the way back to Columbine, up to the shooting of their own colleague, Gabby Giffords. And when the Sandy Hook School shooting happened, and 20 children and six educators were slaughtered in the sanctity of an American elementary school, I was the mom of kids in an elementary school. And I thought, “No one’s gonna do anything.” That was the feeling I had after watching tv that horrific day and watching this news unfold. And I thought, “I have to get off the sidelines now and do something.” I certainly didn’t think I was going to create the nation’s largest women-led gun violence prevention organization.
Shannon:
I just thought that I would put out a clarion call to other like-minded women to say, “Enough, we have to stand up to special interests. We have to stand up to lawmakers who refuse to act. We have to demand the safety of our children.” Now, what I know now 12 years later is that mass shootings and school shootings, while absolutely horrific, are about one percent of the gun violence in this country.
Jen:
Mm-Hmm.
Shannon:
And when we look at this problem — which we have to admit is complex and deserves holistic solutions — we see that it disproportionately impacts Black and brown Americans.
Jen:
Mm-hmm.
Shannon:
And that, in fact, Black men and Black boys are the most often the victims of gun violence and often with handguns.
Jen:
Yeah.
Shannon:
And in city centers. And so when you say, you know, you come to this issue and you say, “Oh, it’s just an assault weapons ban,” or “it’s just a background check,” or “it’s just a red flag law.”
Shannon:
It can’t just be any one of those things. You know, you brought up domestic gun violence. We know at the end of the day the cause of our gun violence crisis in this country, and it is easy access to guns. When you make guns easily accessible to children, you’re going to have unintentional shootings. When you make guns easily accessible to domestic abusers, you’re going to have all of these homicides of women that you talked about. When you make guns easily accessible to people who are struggling, you’re going to have outrageous amounts of gun suicide. So part of the issue is addressing the accessibility, but it’s also, when you look at the lawmakers in this country — 80 percent of whom are men, the majority of whom are White men — and that’s the average gun owner in this country, right? White men over the age of 60. And so I think just the lens that we’re looking this through disproportionately favors special interests and does not look at the safety of Americans.
Jen:
When we are talking about checks on the Second Amendment, that feels so central to exactly why you founded Moms Demand Action — a group that’s just grown immensely since you started it back in 2012. You have been so vocal about the ways in which the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary caused you to feel like you had to do something, and that this kind of violence and the guns that caused it just couldn’t continue unchecked in this country. And with this focus on school shootings and mass shootings, this really has resonated with other moms, just like you were saying earlier. We’ve seen the mind-blowing millions upon millions of people who now volunteer with Moms Demand Action. This message is getting through to a lot of folks. So, kind of given that, I’d love to hear about this relationship, though, between school shootings and gun safety and how women are feeling seen by our court system right now and our lawmakers, and how this dynamic has evolved over the decade plus you have been in this work. How come school shootings are such a motivator for folks to get involved when we know they’re, like you said before, statistically such a small percentage of actual gun violence? And what happens to these women once they do get involved in this work? What are you seeing happen when they learn about the gun violence epidemic in America?
Shannon:
I think because we’ve got to a point in this country where there has to be a certain amount of people killed in order for a shooting to get attention that the ones that break through are the ones that are just… they seem so horrific, right? For example, you know, 10 or more people are killed, it’s everywhere, and you can’t escape it. And yet, you know, we know that over a hundred people are shot and killed every day in this country, and many more are wounded. That’s many mass shootings throughout a day. But when it’s concentrated, you know, in one public place, it gets the attention of media. And so it gets the attention of Americans. That is what motivates many Americans, particularly women, to get off the sideline. And you mentioned school shootings. I think when you become a mother and you send your kid to school, it’s a scary time to separate yourself from your child.
Shannon:
They’re so small, they’re so vulnerable. And to imagine that they’re not even safe, right? In the place where you think they’re going to be safest kind of rocks your world. A lot of our volunteers actually come into the organization when they send their child to preschool or kindergarten for the first time, and they have to do a lockdown drill. They’re essentially rehearsing their own deaths in the bathroom of their classroom as though that door is going to protect them from the spray of a semi-automatic rifle. And you know, in your heart, as a mom, that that’s not true. That that won’t protect them. And so that’s when women come into the organization and, and like me, it’s important that they go through a metamorphosis. I find that when White women come in there, there’s this process that they have to go through, which is to stop looking at gun violence through their own lens of being, you know, a White mother.
Jen:
Yeah.
Shannon:
And to understand the holistic impact of gun violence in this country, to know that Black women have been doing this work in their communities for decades without any attention at all. And to not just fight, for example, for an assault weapons ban, which is important and needs to happen.
Jen:
Yeah.
Shannon:
But it isn’t the first line of defense in creating a gun safety system that will protect everyone in this country. And so it really is a learning process. It’s going through the training; It’s meeting like-minded women who are doing this work in communities they don’t live in. It’s not just advocating for laws and policies that would protect their own children, but all children.
Jen:
You know, you stepped aside from Moms Demand and your founder and leadership role a little over a year ago. With this kind of year of time away, how has it kind of furthered that perspective that you bring to what it means to — especially for White suburban privileged women — to enter this work and to continue in this work and what the future of the movement looks like for these women who are women who get a lot of attention for this work? Kind of like you have said: White suburban women are oftentimes pointed to as the faces of the gun safety movement. And like you pointed out, Black women — Black mothers especially —have been doing this work on the ground for a very long time. With this time this past year, how are you looking ahead on what this movement can and should look like?
Shannon:
Well, you know, it takes me back to the beginning of Moms Demand Action. Lucy McBath…
Jen:
Mm-Hmm.
Shannon:
…Her son Jordan Davis was shot and killed just weeks before the Sandy Hook School shooting.
Jen:
Yeah.
Shannon:
And I was introduced to her in the spring of 2013. And I immediately said to her, “We need you as a spokeswoman for Moms Demand Action.” We ended up supporting her in creating a Florida chapter, because that’s where the trial of her son was.
Jen:
Mm-Hmm.
Shannon:
And, I would say six months later, Lucy came to me — she actually wrote me a letter — saying, “I’m so grateful for the platform of Moms Demand Action, but when I go and speak, it’s often to White people, White women.”
Jen:
Mm.
Shannon:
“And we have to figure out how to broaden the lens of the organization because it won’t last into perpetuity if it’s just an organization that’s anti-gun violence for White people, right?”
Jen:
Yeah.
Shannon:
And I really took that to heart. We took that to heart and changed the way that we were looking at this.
Shannon:
And Lucy was instrumental in that. And I knew that my role needed to be finite, and, in fact, handed the organization over to Angela Farrell Zabala — a Black woman, a mom of four, who lived in Washington D.C. [and] had a much different perspective of gun violence than I do. And I think that that is an important trajectory of the organization. What I’ve seen since stepping back, you know, is that when there is a mass shooting in this country, that White women are still coming to the forefront, but instead of joining Moms Demand Action and going through that process, some of them want to start their own organizations, which I’m not opposed to, but, you know, I would point to the shootings at Highland Park, Illinois at the parade, and then at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee.
Jen:
Mm-Hmm.
Shannon:
Where white women have sort of come to the forefront.
Shannon:
And because they’re not going through that metamorphosis, they’re really focused on protecting their families and their communities. And they’re looking at solutions like an assault weapons ban — things that are very specific to White communities. And so I just think it is my role now that I’ve stepped outside the organization that I can say, “This isn’t the way.”
Jen:
Yeah.
Shannon:
We are actually causing harm if we are not working on gun violence in a way that’s holistic. And I also just think — and know actually through experience — that we are never going to convince gun extremists who have been elected to office to have a change of heart or mind. The only way you can hold extremists accountable is by showing them there are consequences for their actions. So many of these White women in Illinois and Tennessee that I just talked about voted these extremists in. It’s really important that they use their privilege to vote them out and to replace them with Republicans even who support gun safety. That’s how you see change.
Jen:
You know, something I think a lot about with gun violence as a political issue is it’s something that does make a lot of people politically engaged who have been pretty politically agnostic oftentimes otherwise. And I feel like it’s really safe to say that this is something that is especially true when we’re talking about White, wealthy suburban moms as a voting bloc. And what did you just kind of make of that dynamic and the role that privilege plays? That option of sitting out?
Shannon:
You know, White women, when it comes to a lot of different issues, because of privilege, don’t feel the pull to get off the sidelines that people who are at the center of the pain do. Now, that said, that is not an excuse for not getting involved. And Alice Walker has said, you know, “Activism is a rent I pay to live on the planet.” I think that’s an important way to think and to live. That isn’t to shame White women, because I’m grateful when they do finally get off the sidelines and they do see that they have this power that they can use to change things for the better and not just for themselves. You know, Jessica Valenti, the feminist author, talks a lot about the role that White women play in activism. And, as an example, you know, White women trust the system, unlike say, Black and brown women sometimes. And if you want a permit, ask a White woman because she knows how to work the system and she believes it works, and she can get you a permit very quickly, right? And that’s something you need to have a rally or a march. And so I think it’s about seeing the strengths and weaknesses of everyone involved. I think, though, it is really important that White women are willing to go through the transformational process of listening and learning.
Jen:
Who do you feel like you can point to that you’ve learned the most, from Black women and Black mothers especially, who have been long involved in this movement from your time in this movement in doing this work?
Shannon:
The incredible strength and love of democracy and of this country and the optimism, you know. I describe Lucy McBath as a joyful warrior. I mean, this is a person who paid the ultimate price for our lax gun laws in this country, and whose son was stolen from her at 17. And yet, not only did she immediately turn to activism to protect other people from the pain that she went to, right? Perfect strangers that she wanted to protect from experiencing the same pain. And now she’s a congresswoman. Like every step of the way, she has had faith in the ability to make democracy better, to hold it to the promise that it’s been making, you know, for hundreds of years. And to actually get involved in correcting the system. And, it’s so easy to be cynical or to throw up your hands and say, “The system is broken and there’s nothing I can do.”
Shannon:
And, you know, someone told me “R.I.P. can also mean rest in privilege.” Like to just decide that you are going to stay home and protect your own. And I just think it’s an incredible leap of faith, and it’s heroic, to roll up your sleeves and say,” I’m gonna fix this system — this very system that has hurt me so incredibly.” When you’re an American and you want to make democracy better and stronger, you don’t have the choice to sort of give up and say, “Democracy’s sick.” You know? “I give up.” You have to keep working. It’s like, it never is going to be easy in a democracy. It’s always gonna be hard. But you have an important role to play. And looking at it that way has changed my perspective. I have a lot of privilege. And if I use that to step back and only think about myself, it will ultimately hurt other people.
Jen:
You know, I feel like the fundamental question and promise of our democracy is this idea that everyone’s kids can be safe and well and thrive. When we think about that in the context of the gun violence epidemic in our country, and we think about the politics of it, what do you think it means to uphold that duty of keeping our children safe? And who do you see carrying that work right now? What do we need to see happen? And when we look at our elected officials, who do you see making progress, taking big swings and helping more children live safely?
Shannon:
Absolutely women. You know, I think White men have a very skewed view of what it means to have a safe community. And let’s be clear, about a quarter of all Democrats in 2012, in Congress, had an “A” rating from the NRA. This recent shift in, um, being opposed to the gun lobby as a special interest happened only because women held their feet to the fire. It was really when Moms Demand Action volunteers started showing up in their red shirts. I can remember, you know, we cornered Mark Warner, a democratic senator in, um, Virginia in those early days who had an “A” rating from the NRA and was voting for things like concealed carry reciprocity.
Jen:
Yeah.
Shannon:
And we would say to him, like, “We are creating this army and if you continue to vote in favor of these dangerous bills, we will hold you accountable.”
Shannon:
And it was only by thanking and shaming lawmakers, including Democrats, that we had the shift only on the Democratic side. What we have seen over the last decade is, as the country gets more polarized, red states are becoming more pro-gun and blue states are becoming more pro-gun safety. Now, state laws are as permeable, you know, as they’re invisible. So the cars cross state lines as easily as guns do. So we’re all only as safe as the closest state with the weakest gun laws. Right?
Jen:
Yeah.
Shannon:
And so we have to create a country in which not only do we have state laws that support gun safety, but we also have federal laws. And what I have seen is that it’s women lawmakers who have come to the forefront. I mean, you can go all the way back to women like Gina Raimondo, who was the governor of Rhode Island.
Shannon:
It was only because of Governor Raimondo that we were able to pass incredibly strong gun laws in that state. And now that tradition is being carried on by governors like Gretchen Whitmer and Maura Healey and Laura Kelly. These are women who have made gun safety a priority long before it was popular and long before they had amassed political power. And that is why we came up with a program in our own organization called Demand A Seat, which the kind of logical outcome of realizing that you have the power to shape gun safety laws, when you show up, is to decide you want to make them — that you wanna be the person sitting behind the desk. And so hundreds and hundreds of Moms Demand Action volunteers have been trained to run for office. They have run for office and won all the way from Congress — we now have four members of Congress who were Moms Demand Action volunteers — all the way down to city councils and school boards, right? It all matters. And as the saying goes, “If you don’t have a seat at the table, you’re probably on the menu.”
Jen:
Yeah.
Shannon:
And women’s rights and freedoms are on the menu. And so having women hold political power, I think is one of the most important solutions.
Jen:
Thinking about this and this political power too. It’s fascinating, and you know this better than anyone, but for decades — right? — the gun safety movement has just been the third rail in American politics. I mean, this was an absolutely forboden topic. And now we just saw President Joe Biden as the keynote speaker at the Moms Demand Action Gun Sense University, and speaking to, again, thousands of volunteers who cared deeply about this work and are demanding change for gun safety in their communities. When you first started Moms Demand, would you have ever thought that the President of the United States would be talking about gun safety so publicly, and to your volunteers? The volunteers that you have brought into this work? What do you think has changed about the gun safety discourse in our country that has made it not just fine, but politically salient, today? And what role do you think that women and moms especially have really played that have made this something that politicians can’t look the other way from?
Shannon:
Yeah. It’s fascinating to me. I mean, when I started Moms Demand Action, lawmakers, —even Democrats — didn’t want to have pictures taken with us because it was so polarizing and they didn’t want to take a position on it. They didn’t feel like they had to. There was no one holding their feet to the fire. And the NRA…it was really at its zenith of political power, even after the Sandy Hook School shooting. You know, they could have come to the middle, and instead they doubled down and they went far to the right. This special interest did after the Sandy Hook School shooting. And so lawmakers, even Democrats, felt very polled. And what they decided was they just wanted to avoid the issue altogether. And it really was women and mothers who said, “No, we aren’t gonna let you put your head in the sand. We aren’t gonna let you pretend this isn’t happening.”
Shannon:
“We’re gonna show up at every single gun bill hearing in city councils and at state houses and in Congress, and we’re gonna remind you that this issue is one of our top issues.” And, in fact, since starting Moms Demand Action, gun safety has gone from — usually not even in the top 10 — to in the top three.
Jen:
Yeah.
Shannon:
Now, the fact that we have more horrific shooting tragedies because we have about four times the amount of guns in circulation in our society than we did in the late sixties is a big part of that, right? You can’t forget that it’s happening because you’re always reading about gun violence. And I also think the fact that the gun lobby made a decision to double down instead of coming to the middle, that really put them in a box, too. I think, you know, the irony is that if the NRA had said after the Sandy Hook School shooting, “We support background checks on every gun sale.”
Shannon:
Like, “We can agree on that. Let’s pass this.”
Jen:
Mm-Hmm.
Shannon:
I don’t know that Moms Demand Action would’ve happened. I really think it’s because that bill — it was called the Manchin-Toomey bill—
Jen:
Mm-Hmm.
Shannon:
— failed by a handful of votes, including Democratic senators who voted against it in early 2013, it was that failure that helped us realize we needed to pivot and just start doing this work in state houses until we had the right Congress and the right president who would pass gun safety laws. Lo and behold, here comes Joe Biden and his administration. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are the strongest gun safety administration we have ever had in the history of this country. They have done almost everything they could possibly through executive action. And then in 2022, after the horrific shootings in Uvalde and Buffalo, we were able to pass the first gun safety legislation in a generation through Congress — incredibly holistic legislation that didn’t, you know, just look at mass shootings, but poured money into communities for gun violence prevention programs, you know, that can interrupt and intervene and gun violence before it happens.
Shannon:
So that bill — which honestly I thought had a snowball’s chance in hell of passing — passed with the support of 15 Republican senators. And that is only because we had built the foundation that enabled us to have rallies and marches and meetings that forced the hands of lawmakers. Senator McConnell did not whip the votes of Republicans because he had a change of heart and mind. He saw the polling that showed that they were gonna get absolutely massacred in the midterms if they didn’t support gun safety legislation. It was pragmatic. He knew there were going to be political consequences if this bill didn’t pass, if this legislation didn’t pass. And he was right. And so that is what I think that this army of women and mothers have done over the last decade, and it’s why we have this administration that is constantly prioritizing this issue and telling voters, “If you vote for us again in, you know, 2024, we will do even more on this issue.”
Jen:
Yeah. I mean, like you said, gun safety is just absolutely front and center for this president and this vice president. I mean, Vice President Harris is the head of the newly-created White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, and has absolutely become a real public face for this work, both within the administration and generally. It feels really significant, right? That she is the face of this — that she is the head of this office — and it doesn’t feel coincidental that she’s also a woman of color who is heading up this work from within the White House. It’s obvious the White House cares, like you said, but it also seems that they are counting on this being something that it’s gonna bring people to the polls. Do you think that most Americans are able to make this connection between some of this really in the weeds policy work? When you talk about the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, the amount of funding that went into community violence prevention, the amount of work that is being done on a really granular level to prevent gun violence in this country, do you think the average voter — and especially again when we talk about White suburban women of the voting block — who do say that they are concerned about gun violence in our country, are they making those connections? And do you think this is gonna translate as a political tool?
Shannon:
I think we could make them better. I think if we talked more about how much has been done in this country…
Jen:
Mm-Hmm.
Shannon:
It would make people feel a little more hopeful about it. You know, we’ve passed over 600 gun safety bills. We’ve stopped the NRAs agenda 90 percent of the time every year in state houses for the last decade. We have changed the culture of gun violence in this country.
Jen:
Mm-Hmm.
Shannon:
People understand what’s causing it and how to prevent it. We’ve made it a top three voting issue. I do think that it’s been a seismic shift in American politics, but I also feel like Americans could understand more about what’s being done.
Jen:
Mm-Hmm.
Shannon:
You know, there are incredible advocates like Senator Chris Murphy, and, and as you said, Vice President Kamala Harris. There are others in the administration who I think do a good job of talking about what’s been done. But I hope that what we’ll see is a lot of discussion about, for example, this recent Supreme Court decision that essentially allowed bump stocks back into society.
Jen:
Right.
Shannon:
To be clear, this was not an argument about the Second Amendment. This was a very wrongheaded decision that said Congress had not passed a law. There’s was a law in the 1930s that prevents machine guns—
Jen:
Right.
Shannon:
—from being sold without incredible restrictions. And the Supreme Court decided that the ATF did not have the authority to apply that regulation to bump stocks — that Congress had to pass a new law, specifically citing bump stocks. It’s absurd. Every legal analyst that is not beholden to a special interest will tell you that that language absolutely applies to bump stocks.
Jen:
Yeah.
Shannon:
That it turns semi-automatic rifles into machine guns. That the 1930s law does apply. And I really hope that the administration will continue to highlight everything that’s at risk if we don’t vote. Not just think about all the other issues that are important to us, but gun safety, too, even if there hasn’t been a mass shooting in the weeks or months before the election. Like, this is ever present.
Jen:
You know, when we talk about Cargill, too, and this ruling on bump stocks, something else that’s really interesting to me about that is that was a Trump era policy. The bump stock ban came about through the Trump administration. Do you think when we’re talking about White suburban women — and frankly conservative, White suburban women — they know that? And that this was something that was done by the Trump administration and that has now been undone by the Supreme Court? Do you think there is gonna be any of that translating happening? And what does that translating look like within the gun safety movement as an activist movement to reach these conservative women who hold a lot of political power?
Shannon:
It’s a really interesting question. I do think more and more women, regardless of political party, are seeing that guns are a menace and a danger in society. When you look at polling, it shows that both Republican women and Democratic women agree on the solutions to gun safety. I think that’s a really interesting bridge and it’s one that we have to keep open and keep trying to cross. If you look at women generally as voters, they did support Biden. That isn’t to say that White women, you know, aren’t still voting for Donald Trump or thinking about voting for Donald Trump, but especially young White women, they came out and supported President Biden.
Shannon:
You know, when you look at these communities where shooting tragedies happen, you do see a change of heart and mind among conservative women who realize that the policies we have in place are not working. Some of them go through the metamorphosis and the transformation to see that, you know, what the policies are that will protect everyone. But I am hopeful that on all of the issues that we’re seeing, that restrict our freedoms and endanger our safety from reproductive rights to gun safety, that there will be a change in this election cycle. And we are seeing this polarization between men and women in this country. So I am hopeful we can continue to cross-pollinate.
Jen:
You know, to build off of that, too, during this election cycle — and we see it every election cycle — We suddenly see politicians coming out of the woodwork caring a lot about — and there’s always a new name for them — soccer moms, Panera moms. If you’re me in suburban Atlanta, I guess you’re a White, you know, Waffle House mom. I mean, there always gets a label that gets put on trying to oversimplify this bucket of women that they need to win races. And it has always felt a little condescending to me that suddenly we’re usually six months out from a big election cycle and everyone is dying to reach suburban moms. We know, right, that White suburban women do in fact have a lot of political capital like you just said. But in what ways do you feel that they are sometimes dismissed up until we get to this inflection point in election cycles when they get a very different kind of cultural attention? What do you make of that and what it tells us about how our society thinks about women and the role they play in our democracy?
Shannon:
Well, I think it starts with this assumption that when we say suburban women, we mean White women. And, yes, Donald Trump has used this “suburban women” as a dog whistle, but the reality is suburban women look like the rest of America. They are increasingly diverse. Something like 35 percent of the suburbs are now Black and brown people. And…
Jen:
Mm-Hmm.
Shannon:
…when we talk about suburban women, we are talking about a very diverse group of people. It’s not just all White women. And they all have political power. So it’s important to know, first of all, who we’re talking to. But the other piece of it that you talk about, which I also think just gets to the issue of motherhood, is so fascinating to me. I mean, as you can imagine, there are a lot of people who think the name Moms Demand Action is really anachronistic and, maybe even in some ways, harmful or unnecessary.
Jen:
Mm-Hmm.
Shannon:
I think it’s a debate that we should keep having. I’ve had feminists say to me, “When we lean into motherhood, we diminish the role that women play.” That “we diminish their political power.” But I’ve also had feminists say to me like, “We have to be pragmatic.”
Jen:
Mm-Hmm.
Shannon:
You know, there are 80 million mothers in this country. Women are the majority of the voting block, and yet we hold less than a quarter of all elected positions. There’s about 500,000 of them. We’re less than, you know, five percent of Fortune 1000 CEOs. Like, we’re not getting to make the policies that keep our families and our community safe. And so one way to do that is to lean into motherhood. And lawmakers, again, who are mostly men, are inherently afraid that women — and maybe there’s even an oedipal component to this, right? Their own mothers — they’re afraid of them.
Shannon Watts:
They’re afraid of the power that they have. And they’ve seen it throughout history, right? Mothers Against Drunk Driving all the way up to the mothers who fought back against contaminated water in Flint, Michigan. Like it’s almost always…
Jen:
Yeah.
Shannon:
…women and mothers who come to the forefront in activism. And the other thing I will say is when you relinquish motherhood as a political cudgel, you are really giving that power over to the right wing who knows how to use it.
Jen:
Hmm.
Shannon:
You know, when we look at all of these different mothers groups that are rising among the right wing. When you talk about school boards, there was a while there were these other mothers groups were taking over school boards.
Jen:
Yeah.
Shannon:
And really held the political power. So I hope for a day where, you know, my own daughters can advocate in a way that doesn’t tie them to motherhood or maybe even womanhood. But we also have to pull the levers of power that are available to us. And right now it’s motherhood. It’s a very important one.
Jen:
You know, I’d love to talk about the election. It’s so soon, the presidential election, and what is gonna happen after that? And what, you know, what happens after the election if Biden wins? What happens after the election if Trump wins? What does our post-election gun safety movement look like? And what do you think are the things that we really need to prioritize in terms of gun safety, looking ahead, regardless of who our next president is?
Shannon:
Well, look, if, if President Biden wins, again, obviously we know, —especially if they have a Democratic Congress — that we’re gonna see more get done on this issue than we’ve seen in our entire lifetimes. And he has promised an assault weapons ban. But even more importantly background checks on every single gun sale. Right now, only the states that change their laws require a background check on long gun sales like semi-automatic rifles. That’s less than half the country. We see something happening in red states called “permitless carry,” and that’s this idea that you should be able to carry a hidden, loaded handgun or even a long gun in public.
Jen:
Mm-Hmm.
Shannon:
Without any background check or safety training or regulation. So we can see what way the country goes. If Donald Trump is elected, we’re gonna go toward what the red states are doing. If President Biden is elected, we’re gonna go toward what the blue states are doing. The data is very clear. Blue states with strong gun laws have less gun violence and less gun death than red states.
Jen:
Mm-Hmm.
Shannon:
However, there is polling that tells us it’s very possible that Donald Trump will win this election. And he has a son who is making money off of silencers. He has been endorsed by the NRA. He has promised to give guns to anyone, any time, no questions asked. That’s what he has promised to do as president. So if that happens, I think it will be very tempting to say, “Well, there’s nothing we can do, and this is the way the country’s going.” And throw up your hands and give up. And I think —this goes back to the conversation we had about cynicism — which is…we cannot afford to use our privilege to sit on the sidelines. We have to use it to force change. And I wanna remind everyone, when Donald Trump was president, he had a Republican Congress, and yet he was not able to pass a single piece of NRA priority legislation because of the backlash of activists like Moms Demand Action volunteers, right? There is a very important role to play in defense, which stops these bad….Even if you aren’t going to have the opportunity to pass good laws, you can stop bad laws. And I do think that’s an important role that activists have to play after the election.
Jen:
Also, looking ahead, you know, to go back to what you were saying about the role that calling out moms and the roles that motherhood plays in particular in this work, and naming the dynamic that motherhood plays in this work, what hope do you see from moms being able to connect with other moms, kind of, regardless of political affiliation? Like I said, I live in Georgia’s sixth district. My neighbors are on all ends of the political spectrum. And I do find, you know, one of my neighbors just said to me the other day, she was like, “Ugh, I wish there were no politicians and just a bunch of moms, because moms just want what is best for their kids. We could find some better answers. I think moms know that there’s more common ground than any other group of people.” Do you think that’s true? And do you think that there is a future for moms kind of all coming to the table and saying, “We all want our kids to be safe, and right now we are reaching really radically different places where the answers on that are landing in this country.” Do you think there’s an opportunity for progressive and conservative moms to be less divisive and find more progress? And do you think there is some hope to be found there in that idea?
Shannon:
I do think that. Look, there are extremists in this country, regardless of political party. But I do find that most women are pretty moderate, and, as the polling shows, have similar ideas about how to solve gun safety in this issue, or to enforce gun safety. I really do think when you come to the table and you have conversations about the safety of our families and communities, it is something that brings women together. I also think the more women we have in office, the better. And when you have a seat at the table and you’re able to affect real change, and you’re having conversations, you know — even if it’s Republican moms or Democratic moms — like those are important conversations to be had and solutions to be found. In terms of Moms Demand Action, you know, we have asked our volunteers, it’s very easy to get people to come into the movement after a shooting tragedy…
Shannon:
…it’s not as easy to get them to stay. And when we ask our volunteers, like, not only why do you come, but why do you stay? It’s two things. One is that they feel we’re winning, so it’s a good use of their time.
Jen:
Mm.
Shannon:
Two is that they find their people. And as I have traveled across the country, I’ve been astounded to meet these women who seem like they’ve known each other forever. And really they just met a couple years ago through Moms Demand Action, but now they’re best friends and they will be for life. And when you find that community of people, it’s very difficult to extract yourself, right? Because you keep coming back for the camaraderie and that feeling of being in the trenches together and making change and finding meaning. And I think that’s particularly important in the second half of our lives.
Shannon:
You know, I’m, I’m 53 now. When I started this work, I was 41. I’m in a completely different phase of my life with adult children, and friendship is more important than ever. And that’s how I find my friends: through activism.
Jen:
Mm-Hmm.
Shannon:
So this movement isn’t going away. And I hope that we will see movements like Moms Demand Action for other issues. I mean, imagine where we’d be on abortion if there was a Moms Demand Action for abortion. I think it’s really important that we start figuring out how to galvanize the grassroots around every issue that’s important to women. But I also think it’s really important, and I actually think there’s a moral obligation, that women think about running for office. The average age for a woman to run is 47. And often she thinks she has to have a career, or raise a family, and then she’s going to make that decision. Women should be running for office right out of college, or if they don’t go to college, you know, as soon as they’re able to by age, because that is where the power is to be had. And I don’t care if you run for coroner or sheriff or city council, whatever it is; Your influence as a woman and a mother will make a difference in the laws that are passed and the policies that are made.
Jen:
What keeps you hopeful and involved?
Shannon:
I’ve just seen such incredible change. You know, I know that as one person who decided to get off the sidelines and get involved in democracy, that change can…it is happening all the time. I have seen, you know, they talk about bending the arc. I have seen it bending over the last decade, having been in the weeds. I know that we’re winning. And you know, I have a kid who’s gay. And they think that they could marry their partner forever, right? They don’t see the struggle that happened before they were born or when they were little. I think gun violence prevention will be the same. We will wake up and we will have gun safety laws in place that save lives, and we will wonder how we ever lived this way. But that only happens if we all get involved. And when we do, that’s when we’ll see change, right? It happens in numbers. And more and more people have said, “Okay, I’m gonna get involved in this issue and I’m gonna force change.” I think that no matter what the outcome of the election is, it will get more people off the sidelines to do that work.
Jen:
Fantastic. Shannon, thank you so much for speaking with me today. It’s been so great getting to talk with you and hearing how you’re thinking about mothers and White women and the role we’re all gonna play in this upcoming election and the future of gun safety in our country. That is this week’s episode of The Amendment, which is also a newsletter that is written by my incredible colleague, Errin Haines. I wanna thank Errin so much for letting me guest host for her today and lead this conversation. Please know you can subscribe to The Amendment — the podcast and the newsletter — by going to 19thnews.org. That’s where you can also find all of our great journalism by all my great colleagues around gender, politics and policy. For the 19th and Wonder Media Network, I’m Jennifer Gerson.
Errin:
The Amendment is a co-production of The 19th News and Wonder Media Network. It is executive produced by Jenny Kaplan, Terri Rupar and Faith Smith. Wonder Media Network’s head of development is Emily Rudder. Julia B. Chan is the 19th’s editor-in-chief. The Amendment is edited by Jenny Kaplan, Grace Lynch and Emily Rudder, and it is produced by Adesuwa Agobnile, Grace Lynch, Brittany Martinez and Taylor Williamson, with production assistance from Luci Jones and post-production support from Julie Bogen, Victoria Clark, Lance Dixon, and Wynton Wong. Artwork by Aria Goodman. And our theme music was composed by Jlin.
