The Moms Are Back, and They Mean Business

By Lookout Staff

Five months after the Million Mom March on Washington, members of the sponsoring group's West Los Angles Chapter convened on the steps of Santa Monica City Hall Monday to launch a get-out-the vote campaign.

The Campaign will target where candidates - from city council members to members of Congress - stand on gun issues.

"In the past year, in the wake of shootings across the nation, we conceived and organized a march and created a national grassroots movement," said Suzanne Verge, president of the West L.A. Chapter, which is still forming. "And, in the same time Congress has done absolutely nothing."

As election time draws closer the "Moms," who have organized more than 200 chapters across the nation since their historic march on Washington in May, will walk precincts, work phone banks, send email and register voters in the hopes of impacting the election.

"On May 14, we called on Congress to enact sensible gun laws for the sake of our children and our nation," said National President Mary Leigh Blek in a statement. "Today we renew that call, and if the lawmakers don't listen, we will elect new lawmakers."

The organization is calling for Congress to require handgun owners to be licensed and all handguns to be registered, to close "gun show" loopholes that allow anyone to purchase a gun, to limit gun buyers to purchasing one gun a month and to require consumer product safety standards for guns.

Verge, a mom who lost her brother to gun violence in Santa Monica, said the conference also marked the one-year anniversary of the start of the Million Mom March by a New Jersey mother who was sickened by the shooting at a Jewish day care center in Granada Hills. The organization has established a non-profit lobbying organization called the Million Mom March to lobby for tougher laws.

On Mother's Day more than 750,000 moms and others converged on Washington and in more than 70 other cities across the country to call for tougher gun control laws. The Washington march was the largest gun control rally in history.

"It was a defining moment in my life," said Verge, who was at the Washington March. "It was very powerful."

Verge said the West L.A. chapter is close to meeting full-fledged chapter requirements. She is continuing to recruit moms and others. For more information visit www.millionmommarch.org.