In this episode, Grace talks with Kitty Brandtner, founder and co-president of the nonpartisan organization March Fourth, which is focused on reinstating the federal assault weapons ban. Kitty shares her personal journey toward activism, sparked by mass shootings and the Uvalde tragedy, emphasizing the need for gun legislation. The conversation cover the impact of gun laws including the expired assault weapons ban and its potential to reduce gun violence significantly.

Kitty also discusses the challenges and strategies in mobilizing political support for the GOSAFE Act, a proposed bill aiming to update the assault weapons ban by addressing technical aspects of firearms. They highlight the organization's approach to advocacy, the importance of public opinion in shaping policy, and the bipartisan effort required to enact effective gun control legislation.

00:00 Introducing Kitty

00:08 Origin of March Fourth Organization

00:42 A Personal Journey to Activism

02:50 The American Gun Crisis

04:24 The Second Amendment Debate and Gun Legislation

05:27 The Assault Weapons Ban and the Push for Legislation

06:22 Building a Nonpartisan Movement for Gun Control

13:25 The Challenges and Strategies of Gun Control Advocacy

17:50 Engaging the Public and Politicians for Change

30:03 The GOSAFE Act: A New Path Forward

36:24 Concluding Thoughts and the Path Ahead

Copyright 2024 Grace Cowan

• GOSAFE Act | Senator Martin Heinrich
• March Fourth - Organization website
• The Poets of Rhythm - "South Carolina

Grace: 00:00:00

Kitty, it's so great to have you on Frogmore Studio. Thanks for being here.

Kitty: 00:00:04

Thank you. I'm so happy to be joining you, grace. Thank you.

Grace: 00:00:08

I'm interested at the name. March 4th.

Kitty: 00:00:11

So you'd think, we put a lot of thought into it and you'd be wrong. We started this completely by accident, on July 6th. Two days after a massacre in Highland Park, and we were literally filling out a permit for, The March in D. C. And it was like name of business or entity.

Kitty: 00:00:31

And we were like, Oh, we got to name this thing. It's a March and it's after the fourth and it's like a forward motion. Perfect. Moving on. And so that is what we're sticking with.

Grace: 00:00:42

That's great. And so, tell us what the impetus was. You mentioned the massacre in Highland park.

Kitty: 00:00:49

Yes, absolutely. I always like to say, Sandy Hook happened, and I was 25 years old, I naively and selfishly assumed that the adults in the room would have it figured out by the time, I had kids and was sending them to school.

Kitty: 00:01:03

And the Uvalde tragedy occurred. The whole world was upside down. We were devastated. I knew I was sending my oldest daughter, to kindergarten that fall, and I realized I was sending her to a mass shooting target because I had to educate her. It was mind boggling to me that, that this is just the way it was.

Kitty: 00:01:22

And my husband and I have a long-planned trip overseas the day after, the Uvalde tragedy occurred. And it's all I could talk about when we went there. We were meeting, parents from all over. From France and England and Germany and Spain and New Zealand, Australia. All of them said the same thing. They all said, we are so sorry. We've heard it's everywhere. And we will never understand what you guys go through over there. We will never have this be our reality because we don't have access to guns, let alone assault weapons. So, about a month later, I was taking my kids to their first parade because of COVID on the 4th of July. My sister has a business in Highland Park and she received a phone call saying there's an active shooter. We were at a parade, 10 minutes away.

Kitty: 00:02:11

At first you're like, no, like it must be some one off, a domestic dispute. There's no way there's an active shooter. And very quickly we realized that there was in fact, and we had a lot of friends that were, running for their lives. I now know many people who were shot and injured.

Kitty: 00:02:26

It was the worst day. We had to run home and shelter in place because the shooter was at large with an AR 15. Our. entire county was sheltered in place on the 4th of July. And I just remember at the time, my, my five-year-old daughter was like, why can't we go outside? It's the 4th of July. And in my head, I'm like, it's because I'm raising you in America. That's why.

Grace: 00:02:50

One of the things that just is blaring in my head is that there are so many, The first one for me that I remember was Columbine, and I think that was in 1999, and since then there have been hundreds and hundreds of them, maybe even thousands, and I think that that we're almost numb to them.

Grace: 00:03:15

You still recognize the names Because it's all over the news and you hear it over and over again And I don't want to sound, cruel here, but you forget the details because there are so many that just keep happening over and over and you feel so powerless and it's almost, too much for the human brain to comprehend that you're in danger everywhere that you go.

Kitty: 00:03:40

Yes, exactly right. I think it's like less about numb and more about which is like fully traumatized like these are not Situations that should happen in civilian life and when they happen regularly you have no choice, but to compartmentalize to survive it's it's a very uniquely American problem that we have.

Kitty: 00:04:01

But, we know names of cities and towns, not because we visited them or because we want to go or we have family there, but because they were markers of tragedies that of mass shootings that have occurred, and that doesn't happen elsewhere. So it's devastating.

Grace: 00:04:17

The differential on why it happens here versus other countries is really the history of guns in this country, right? It all goes back to the Second Amendment. A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state. The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The semantics of that. That have been argued over and over and interpreted by many different judges and many different organizations.

Grace: 00:04:50

Right now, the push is that the second amendment represents unfettered gun access. Where you're hyper focused, is that it needs to be specific.

Kitty: 00:05:05

Yeah, it's fascinating, you can zoom out and just realize that the rest of the world hasn't cured mental illness,

Kitty: 00:05:11

the rest of the world hasn't, eliminated all these other, obstacles that people like to say are the cause. At the end of the day, America has unfettered access to firearms. And we allow civilians to purchase military weapons. And we didn't always, Like we had an assault weapons ban from 1994 to 2004.

Kitty: 00:05:34

Did it solve gun violence? No! But were you 70 percent less likely to die in a mass shooting? Yes. And the only benefit of its expiration is that we have data to know that it worked. So we are looking at this as the low hanging fruit of gun legislation. This is not a proof of concept.

Kitty: 00:05:52

This is facts. If we reinstate this law, less people will die. And by the way, nobody's second amendment rights will be infringed. They weren't before and they won't. Again, this is not. A hot take to say, Hey, we don't have tanks in our driveways. We don't need assault weapons in our homes. And the good news is the majority of America agrees.

Kitty: 00:06:14

So this isn't even about, changing the hearts and minds of the majority of America. We've got them. It's about making Congress reflect that.

Grace: 00:06:22

And I know your organization March 4th is a nonpartisan organization, but at some point this. This became a very partisan issue, and I don't feel like it was a hundred years ago.

Grace: 00:06:36

I think this is a more recent thing, and there are organizations who really, have attributed to this issue, People often site the NRA and really the NRA seems to be falling apart right now.

Grace: 00:06:50

And I imagine there are some other organizations that are coming in to take their place. But 1994 seems like a pivotal year because that's when the assault weapons ban, you just mentioned went into play. What was the impetus for Congress passing an assault weapons ban?

Kitty: 00:07:08

What's really important to understand is this was passed with Republican support.

Kitty: 00:07:15

Ronald Reagan wrote a letter in support of this ban. It wasn't this divisive topic. Now, you are right that, the NRA has been studied and will continue to be studied about how they've, created this industry around an amendment of the constitution.

Kitty: 00:07:31

But at the end of the day, we've got a, a law that was passed the same way, we regulate, Any product that needs some, safety guidelines and regulatioNs. the only, other pieces in order to pass it, they included a sunset clause, that was every 10 years, Congress would have to vote on this to re up it. And They didn't vote on it in 2004. So it just expired.

Grace: 00:07:56

During that time, many of the gun manufacturers, were really lobbying to have this expire.

Grace: 00:08:04

They did not want this renewed. They were preparing advertising specifically around the gun, the AR 15. And one of the things that they have attached to that is, this like, Ethos of this gun represents the American man, it's like a muscle car, it represents who you actually are as a person versus what this kind of weapon can do or does.

Grace: 00:08:32

And, when that expired sales exploded, in the decade after the ban expired, the U. S. had a 183 percent increase in gun massacres and a 239 percent increase in gun fatalities.

Kitty: 00:08:47

You have to remember this was post 9 11 on the heels of, an attack on our country. And so there were different views, we have to protect ourselves and our country and all those things. There's a ton of different pieces that go into how this perfect storm occurred. But I think it's really interesting the way, the gun industry has doubled down and they did right after Sandy Hook, which was 2013.

Kitty: 00:09:11

This year marks 20 years since the assault weapons ban expired. So we have 20 years of American trauma to analyze and understand and reflect on. I think what you said is exactly right. We haven't been focused on what the guns can do.

Kitty: 00:09:29

I've met with a lot of physicians and doctors who have tried to treat those impacted by mass shootings.

Kitty: 00:09:35

We've brought them to the hill, one of the most compelling points that they make is that no matter how well trained and what school they went to and how much experience they have, they cannot recreate an organ.

Kitty: 00:09:46

An assault weapon liquefies the organ . . we are not talking about a gunshot wound that has an, in and out. Like we are not talking about that. We are talking about weapons that were designed to do the most damage to the human body in as short amount of time as they possibly can.

Kitty: 00:10:03

And that's the reason mass shooters reach for them is because they're effective. Reinstating the assault weapons ban is not a gun grab. It is not infringing on people's rights. It's not saying, give me all of your guns.

Kitty: 00:10:14

It's saying the ones that were designed for war should stay in war. They should be. Reserved for those who are trained to use them. And you'll hear doctors and veterans and all sorts of people who have experience in this area agree with us. This is not complicated. The gun industry has been so successful at selling this image of who an American man is. He's strong. He protects his family. He protects this country. And these are the tools that you need. To be able to do that. So all of the data that I've read shows that logic doesn't necessarily work because this isn't about logic.

Grace: 00:10:59

It's about, their, moral makeup, I live in the South and I know many people that own AR 15s and most of them, are all for gun legislation but there is this subset of people that just believe the gun isn't the problem. It's the problem of the person and data can tell you otherwise. But that's really what you're fighting against, right?

Kitty: 00:11:26

Yeah. Here's the thing though.

Kitty: 00:11:28

That sect of people that you're referring to is such a small minority. But they're loud. Correct. Logic doesn't tend to be loud and proud. It just is what it is. And so what we're trying to do is amplify logic in a way that is uniting and not shaming. It's not saying if you vote this way, you're wrong.

Kitty: 00:11:48

It's saying, this is not a political issue. This is a matter of humanity. As a mom, I want to drop my kids off at school and pick them up alive. It's crazy that I'm having to fight for this, but this is not a hot take. So I think, it's basically like the Marlboro Man, right?

Kitty: 00:12:05

For, you're cool if you smoke cigarettes. Logic and data prevailed saying, hey, that will kill you.

Grace: 00:12:12

And that's a great example.

Kitty: 00:12:13

It took, a long time and it took a little culture shift. Not a little one, a big one. But I think the difference is the Majority of Americans are on the right side of history here.

Kitty: 00:12:25

So it's about amplifying them and encouraging them to say, Hey, you got to speak up a little bit on this. You got to explain why it's important to participate in this issue, because otherwise we're going to have another 20 years of what we've been dealing with. And what that is, is a citizenship of traumatized individuals who are one degree away or less of somebody that's been impacted by a mass shooting. And that's not a great record here.

Grace: 00:12:50

Well, it also goes back to something we talk about on this podcast a lot too, is that those loud people are who vote in the primaries. The most extreme candidate becomes the Republican candidate and then people that don't pay attention to politics vote, whatever party they grew up voting for and then you wind up getting people in our legislature voting with NRA because they get, money from the NRA and the cycle continues.

Grace: 00:13:16

So there are so many organizations and groups and lobbyists that have been fighting these laws for decades with very little movement. What prompted you to start an organization rather than getting involved in another long-established organization?

Kitty: 00:13:32

Yeah, completely by accident. Picking up from that earlier story, after these, tragedies occurred I started getting pretty like spicy and started talking to the internet as one does, just asking questions because I am not a policy wonk.

Kitty: 00:13:46

I would vote and I would donate to, Sandy Hook Promise and Everytown and these organizations. I'm like, you got this, but I didn't educate myself. And I just assumed that like, I'm not smart enough for this. I like was sidelined by my own, insecurity that I couldn't add value.

Kitty: 00:14:01

It all came to a head where I'm like, I just want to understand, can the president ban assault weapons? What am I missing? Can he not do an executive order? And people are like, no, that's a dictatorship. I'm like, got it. Well, why, why can't we do this? Is Congress working?

Kitty: 00:14:13

Can we go there? I think I just want to go to DC and scream at the top of my lungs that I want a federal ban on assault weapons. Does anyone want to come? And I published my email address to Instagram. And then I went to bed, and I woke up to 300 emails.

Kitty: 00:14:28

For the first time in 48 hours, I was crying tears of hope rather than, complete despair. And it was people, in D. C., my now co president, who was like, Hey, I've spent, the past two decades in lobbying and working on the Hill. I can help you. People saying I'm in PR.

Kitty: 00:14:41

I can help you with media. I'm in event planning. I can help you. And suddenly we have this organization. So I'm emailing with, lots of these organizations. And I'm like, Hey, like I've never done this before. What am I doing? Yeah. Like, and interestingly, I heard one of two things. Number one was don't do this. Don't start at the federal level.

Kitty: 00:15:01

Nothing ever happens. Start local and in my head I'm like, Highland Park has an assault weapons ban and that didn't do anything. It has to be federal the other Input I got was you know, we could really use another unique voice on this So we're happy to support you, but, to even get this approved your event already would have taken place. In terms of the red tape that we'd have to go through to participate. And we were moving, right? We were doing this in a week. It was like no harm, no foul. Thank you. And we'll keep going. And so I'm, now close with a lot of the leaders of these groups.

Kitty: 00:15:33

But I think what's important is, There is room for a lot of different approaches here. And to your point, we've been trying to attack a lot of these problems for the past two decades with very little federal legislation, to show for it.

Kitty: 00:15:49

I always say, if everything is important, nothing is. People would say, Oh, what about this law? And have you thought about placa?

Kitty: 00:15:56

And what about background checks and red flag laws? And we had to just be like, yes. And that's not our mission. It's not saying don't support that. Absolutely we can, but the minute we dilute the singular mission, we lose. We have to stay really focused to drive results.

Kitty: 00:16:12

We’ve carved out this little niche for ourselves of being really focused on the low hanging fruit piece of legislation that already existed. Like this should be the easy one here and being nonpartisan. We very deliberately, did not sign up for this fundraising software called act blue, which is what a lot of our peers fundraise on because you immediately alienate Republicans.

Kitty: 00:16:37

And this is not shaming how others are doing it Like we have to do it all the ways we have to shake the tree at all the angles But as we look at it, we would like to activate these moderates that feel shame for how they voted in the past and to say like you're safe here all we need you to do is support this federal ban on assault weapons and call your representative or senator like we frankly need Republicans to get this passed.

Kitty: 00:17:01

When you isolate or shame them, it's pretty counterintuitive to your whole mission.

Grace: 00:17:06

There is a federal law in place on background checks, and every state has their own gun laws but you can't go by a gun without doing a federal background check except for the thing called the Charleston loophole, which I think is when you buy it a gun show. And, of course, that's to muddy it even more there when someone gifts a gun to someone else, or you pass it down in your family, or you let someone borrow it for a hunting trip.

Grace: 00:17:33

There are lots of ways for someone who should not have a gun. To undo that mess, is super complicated, but to start with this one specific thing, that really does have a huge impact based on data is really, distinguishing.

Kitty: 00:17:50

Congress loves when I say this, but you have to look at Congress like, toddlers like I've got three young kids and when they come running through my door And I if I tell them hey, hang up your backpack put away your shoes and hang up your coat They'll just sprint into the kitchen like they're not going to do any of the things because I’ve given them a multi step direction If I say hey Take off your shoes.

Kitty: 00:18:10

Are your shoes off? Can you take off your shoes? Oh, what about your shoes? Get your shoes off. There's just a higher likelihood they're gonna do it. And I have to treat Congress the same, right? Of saying Hey, the assault weapons ban. Remember the assault weapons ban? Are we going to reinstate that?

Kitty: 00:18:21

You have to be consistent to hammer things, to drive it to completion there are a ton of things to fix we could spend an hour listing the problems in gun violence prevention right now of like the things that we need to solve.

Kitty: 00:18:36

That typically is, not only very intimidating, but it can turn people off from activating in the first place I'm the barometer, right? Like me before was like, I can't take this on. I'm not smart enough. I don't understand this stuff. And it's like, no, it's not about that. It's literally like, Hey, do you agree that we don't have tanks in our driveways? We don't need to sell weapons in our homes. Yeah, great. All you need to do is participate on this issue.

Kitty: 00:19:00

And we always say the best type of participation is the kind you will actually do. So what does that mean? It could mean you're liking something and sharing it on social media. It could mean you're making calls to your senators and representative every day. It could mean you're hosting a fundraiser and getting the word out.

Kitty: 00:19:15

It could mean you're coming to DC and lobbying with us. I don't care what kind of participation you're doing, but you have to do something.

Grace: 00:19:23

And I think to your point about the kids coming in and giving them so many directive versus one, ask anyone on the street, if they'd be comfortable watching someone in a parking lot, sell an assault rifle to a stranger.

Grace: 00:19:35

They would probably say no, but when you add in the politics and the language of like gun control and gun bans or any of those words, it becomes whoa, whoa, that's too much to compute And so I'm not qualified to make that decision in this. Right. Yeah, that's right. Except you are, and that is exactly what you're selling, right? You're saying this is what we need to stop. We shouldn't have these weapons available to anyone in any way.

Kitty: 00:20:06

Civilians don't need them. That was one of my biggest questions on the 5th of July when I was asking the internet things, which, I wouldn't necessarily recommend as a place of, data, but I'm like, what am I missing?

Kitty: 00:20:18

Does somebody need an AR 15 for their job? And the answer is no. We are making choices through policy to allow this.

Grace: 00:20:27

It seems to me that you have two jobs.

Grace: 00:20:30

One is to get people that are voting to assign this one thing as their number one voting, Preference right? It's been said a lot of women came out to vote against all of the extreme abortion bills because that's their primary voting reason. Like all the other stuff becomes minutia.

Grace: 00:20:52

There's typically with any voter, there's one specific thing that drives why they're voting for the person they're voting for. And it's very difficult to undo people's party affiliation. Although right now, We're in in a unique time frame. There are a lot more independence than there are Republicans or Democrats.

Grace: 00:21:11

So that's one way. And then the second way is to literally go to every politician, regardless of their stripes and say this isn't a gun grab, as you said, this is really like just one tiny piece of it. And it's something that you can do without too much destruction to your campaign.

Kitty: 00:21:30

So the thing that I'll say is we, don't exist to get anyone elected or to keep anyone in office.

Kitty: 00:21:38

It is irrelevant to our mission because I know that anyone in office right now could pass this law. They just aren't. So what we need is people to speak up. The public policy is informed by public opinion.

Grace: 00:21:54

Is it really public policies informed by public opinion? Yes. I don't know. I feel like we've lost that.

Kitty: 00:22:01

Yeah. No, I'm sure to a degree. But here's the problem. What happens is one of these incidents occurs because we haven't solved the problem yet and there will be a spike in outrage. There will be calls and emails and protests and things like that for now. I think it's 72 hours and then We move on I understand we all have to do it, but the reality is Congress knows that they have a window that it's going to be tricky and then they're good to go.

Kitty: 00:22:28

And so they don't act because they don't have consistent pressure. It's really hard to care about this all the time and we get it, but that's what we are here to do. We are your outsource of outrage every single day, because we are working on this every single day.

Kitty: 00:22:43

We are lobbying on this multiple times a month. We are beating this drum all the time. And so I would push back on the sense that, It doesn't influence. I think there's just fatigue. Like people are traumatized and tired there's a media fatigue around reporting on mass shootings and gun violence just because it happens all the time So it's reinvigorating the American population to say you have power We're just not using it and we have to use it in a really concentrated way like To combat a really concentrated gun lobby, whose singular priority is to not pass any gun legislation.

Grace: 00:23:19

it feels very much like wash, rinse, repeat. The same lines come in of good guys with guns versus bad guys with guns. It's mental health. It's all of these other things. It's too soon to talk about it. And then it becomes thoughts, and prayers, the same thing over and over and literally nothing ever gets done.

Grace: 00:23:39

And I really did think after the kids in Parkland, they were so frustrated that they are now so involved in lobbying the government. And, I do have hope in the future because in my school, we didn't have to, we did like tornado drills and all those things, but I didn't have to do gun drills.

Grace: 00:24:00

And I think that the kids who have grown up doing these gun drills. They are going to be the ones that this is their primary focus, and this is going to be what they run on and what they win on, and they will change it. But I still think there's like this older group of people who are in this rinse and repeat cycle, and they have not really been affected by it. And that is really what changes political will is whether or not you've been affected by it.

Kitty: 00:24:30

It's such an interesting thing America continues to break our own records of mass shootings. And that's not something to be proud of, but what that does is make this so that it impacts everyone.

Kitty: 00:24:43

We're not safe. We're lucky. I've been in Mitch McConnell's office, probably three weeks before the Kentucky Louisville shooting and after. Same people, same topic, different meetings. Because it hits home, right? Look, we're trying to change the culture on things and move the needle here.

Kitty: 00:25:03

How have we done it in the past, with gay marriage and women's rights and civil rights? And the answer is by bringing more people to the middle and more people, are touched by it. And so that comes with. Speaking up and speaking out, you know, as we've seen, there's senators that started saying, my son's gay and I'm looking at this differently now, right?

Kitty: 00:25:23

And the best conversations that we have are a lot of the people with school aged children, because this isn't a, what if. This is a yeah, no, they've done active shooter drills. We've been in lockdown.

Kitty: 00:25:34

Let me tell you a story about when this happened recently. And then it's crossing over into the grandparents because our, legislature is so elderly that's where we're focused, but it's like, this is real and it touches every walk of American life, does not discriminate. And so we have to speak up and speak out about it,

Grace: 00:25:53

Your organization is also very focused on getting corporations to get into this fight with you. In the past we've heard. Divest yourselves from gun makers or people that make bullets that's a way that you can have advocacy through money, but your organization takes a little bit of a different approach in getting corporations to actually use their voices to push for this assault weapons ban.

Kitty: 00:26:21

So, I wouldn't say we prioritize corporations over any other group. It's pretty equal. We have this outreach team of volunteers and the goal is to amplify these channels of voices so that we can be a choir.

Kitty: 00:26:34

And so when you take, like I mentioned, the physicians, the medical subcommittee that we have, and the veterans group that we have, and teachers and business leaders and suddenly, who's standing on the other side? This is a chess game with Congress. And so I'm not naive to think it is only about us getting loud. It's also about having strategic voices who speak out in support of this, whether it's publicly or privately.

Kitty: 00:26:59

That can be a combination of, the top employers in certain states or the top. Donors to these political campaigns or, just people of influence in a lot of different pockets. So our goal is to create different buckets of people and then activate them all at the same time.

Grace: 00:27:15

We now in South Carolina have an open carry, state. And what international company is going to want to come and set up shop in a In the wild west of South Carolina, where people are just walking around with guns on their hips,

Kitty: 00:27:31

we're talking again about logic. This is not good for business. And Jon Stewart, like recently said in an interview, if more guns make us safer, when? Because we have more guns than people. So let me know when that theory, comes to fruition?

Grace: 00:27:47

And that's why your organization is so key, because this one thing can actually make an immediate difference in outcomes if that law were to be reinstated. That's a differentiating point of your organization and I think a really important differential. I am curious though, when you sit down with, senators, lobbyists like what? What do they say? Like the ones that aren't in alignment with you. What's their pushback?

Kitty: 00:28:18

We've met with over 400, congressional offices since we've existed and many of these offices multiple times. You are building relationships and getting people to do something that you want them to do.

Kitty: 00:28:29

And in this case, help less people die, which should be pretty easy. So I think when we go into these offices, right in July of 22, They had just passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and that was the first federal piece of legislation that had something to do with guns. Now, it was mostly a mental health bill and about resourcing in schools and stuff like that, but regardless, it got people on the map, which is great.

Kitty: 00:28:54

So when we brought up this, there was a lot of, I think we're done with guns for the year. We've really spent our political capital on, sticking our neck out here for the Bipartisan Saver Communities Act. And then, as we had more conversations, what you're not thinking about is mental health.

Kitty: 00:29:10

And I want to know, how we're dealing with these fatherless boys. And those, these are things I hear, over time. Especially when you have multiple meetings with these offices. And unfortunately, when more and more massacres continue to occur across the country, the conversation becomes, look, we know, gun violence is a big problem in America.

Kitty: 00:29:34

We've realized that guns are the number one killer of kids. Like these are not, opinions, right? But we're not sure that this is the bill that we can get behind. We're like, okay, we are getting somewhere. The first step is acknowledging we have a problem, right? What we've tried to do is work with a lot of these offices who are basically saying We get it.

Kitty: 00:29:56

We just don't know how to navigate this in a way that doesn't, lose us our jobs. And that's really what this is. And so as we've been championing this new assault weapons ban bill that, which was introduced in November, it's called the go safe act. It was written by a moderate Dem Senator Heinrich.

Kitty: 00:30:15

He is a hunter, a supporter of the second amendment, a gun owner. And he was not a supporter, not a co sponsor of the assault weapons ban piece of legislation. And for the first several months of meeting with him, we're like, why? Like, how are we going to get you there? He's like, I don't like the way it's written.

Kitty: 00:30:31

I don't like the way the guns are defined. But he wrote his own bill that defines the weapons based on the functionality of the gun rather than the characteristics. And what that means in layman's terms is it's how they work rather than what they look like.

Kitty: 00:30:44

He is a civil engineer; he is very technical and he spent a lot of time. working on this bill, but I think one of the important things that it does is market this differently in the sense that it is not called the assault weapons ban and it's right scary and creates a visceral reaction.

Kitty: 00:31:02

It's called the go safe act they're saying we can protect the second amendment and American lives at the same time. And that, as we've been lobbying for this bill and the fact that it was introduced by, a Senator who did not co sponsor the other bill and an independent in Senator Angus King, who also did not co sponsor the other bill and had a recent tragedy in Lewiston, Maine. It just has legs, right? Look, I don't care what they pass. Like I want an assault weapons ban and I'd like them to say, which one should we pass? Not should we pass one at all? But what I'm seeing is there's a real path here for the Go Safe Act for a number of reasons. And this is what we've been talking about with Republican offices as of recently. And it's been very, interesting because there hasn't been a new piece of legislation on this topic in over 20 years.

Grace: 00:31:51

So I read one of the older House bills, and then I also read the current Senate bill, the current bill has Every gun listed that senator is speaking about in how they're loaded, like all of the very specific engineered type things and, I thought that was an interesting way to differentiate how those bills were written, saying, these specific guns versus all assault rifles, and that to me means that they're paying attention and that they understand the problem and that there is a difference between a hunting rifle and an AR 15.

Kitty: 00:32:31

Yeah. His whole thing is I understand the mechanisms that make these specific weapons, murder machines, like it is, it's called go safe. Gas. operated semi automatic firearms exclusion act. And this is gets very technical the bottom line is, this is another opportunity to bring people together around a common mission, which is to reinstate an assault weapons ban because nobody needs an AR 15. It does not take away anyone's guns. In fact, if you currently own an assault weapon, it is grandfathered in.

Kitty: 00:33:03

Not a gun grab. It is just the freeze of the manufacture and sale of assault weapons. And as I always say, the sentence that strings the deadliest mass shootings together is the shooter obtained the AR 15 legally. So if we could mitigate that, we should.

Grace: 00:33:18

And have you met with either of the South Carolina senators, Tim Scott or Lindsey Graham?

Kitty: 00:33:24

Yes, not themselves, but their offices many times.

Grace: 00:33:27

And where are they on this?

Kitty: 00:33:29

Scott's been an interesting one given his, frankly, his ulterior motives and his political career, right? But it hasn't been a bad meeting and Graham hasn't been, those haven't been bad meetings either. They're not a flat out. No. We bring them basically different flavors of data and evidence each time we go and different constituent voices. One time we did bring them in the past, probably six months ago. We brought some registered Republican men, gun owners from South Carolina to meet with their offices to say Hey, I'm the one you're worried about and I'm good with it.

Kitty: 00:34:03

In fact, I want you to do this and I ardently support it. And I wouldn't say they're off the table at all.

Grace: 00:34:09

That's interesting. That's good news. so you're saying there's a chance.

Kitty: 00:34:13

Exactly.

Grace: 00:34:14

What would you consider a win in this fight? Is it that the exact go safe act gets passed because once it gets out of the Senate, then it has to go through the house.

Grace: 00:34:25

Do you feel like there's an opportunity for that exact bill to pass the house.

Kitty: 00:34:31

So I think to answer your question simply, I want there to be an assault weapons ban in America, what that looks like, what the bill is called. I'm happy to support anything that does that and whatever, we'll get us there.

Kitty: 00:34:45

Because immediately less people die. There is no downside here. The benefit of being pretty new to this is that I have a little bit of, naive, wide eyed, bushy tailed, like we can do anything we want, but you come up against a lot of jaded people in both parties saying, yeah, this will never get done.

Kitty: 00:35:03

But the bottom line is, They passed the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act in an election year. So for anyone that says, oh, nothing can happen in an election year. The rules are there are no rules. So what we can focus on is changing hearts and minds, which again, I don't think we have to change very many because the majority of Americans support this, but getting Congress to reflect that. And then it's a timing game and that's disgusting because we shouldn't have to wait for any more tragedies for this to occur.

Grace: 00:35:30

One thing I do want to ask you about the bill is what happens to the people that own AR 15s or any type of assault weapon, if this bill gets passed, do they keep them?

Kitty: 00:35:42

Nothing happens. Nothing happens. They keep them. They go along with their merry day. We are not worried about the majority of people who are responsible gun owners. This is not a gun grab. So in both bills and go safe and the assault weapons ban, the currently lawfully owned assault weapons are grandfathered in. This is about the freeze of the manufacturing sale of future assault weapons to help mitigate those mass shooters who reach for, legally, these weapons because they're effective. There's provisions for future, buyback programs that have been successful in New Zealand, etc. So that's like a step two, but in the meantime we have to quite literally stop the bleeding and that's what we aim to do.

Grace: 00:36:23

And that's where it is. Kitty, this has been such a, an enlightening conversation. This is awesome. I think what you're doing is amazing. with such massive, Outcome potential. It's like a plus B equals C. And rarely in politics. Do you find something that's that is this simplified and easy to understand?

Grace: 00:36:46

And yet you can see the huge results of that. In real data that's been done during our lifetime it's not like we're talking about 1840 and I think that is, is the most powerful message that you have. And I love the sort of underlying tagline of the go safe act, which is, protecting American lives. But also protecting the second amendment. So right. I'm really hopeful.

Kitty: 00:37:12

Thank you. No grace. You're wonderful. Thank you for bringing this to your listeners and if anyone wants to learn more, feel free to follow us on social March 4th, 4th as in 4th of July, or we March 4th.org.

Grace: 00:37:24

I love it. I can't wait. I hope you'll invite me to the signing when it happens. Oh, done girl. I can't wait. Love that energy. See you there. All right. Thank you so much. That's all for today.