Newton resident Rep. Jake Auchincloss has renamed his Leadership PAC, now called Beyond Thoughts and Prayers, to raise money for Democratic colleagues and candidates who are committed to supporting gun-safety laws, including background checks, red-flag laws, and safe gun-storage laws. Highlighting his leadership initiatives, he invited his Newton constituents to meet one of his gun-control allies, Georgia Representative Lucy McBath, and to support her campaign. More than forty people gathered to hear the two Congressional allies describe their paths to advocate for gun safety.
Rep. Auchincloss talked about his having been “brand new to Congress on January 6th” (2021), the day that Jon Ossoff won the Senate seat in Georgia. Rep. Auchincloss said he had been thinking “It’s going to be a great day. [but] …It was an awful day.” He said the worst day of his three years in Congress was May 24, 2022 — the day of the shooting at the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. Rep. Auchincloss, the father of three young children, said he was haunted by the vision of parents able to identify their children only by their shoes because of the extent of damage from the gunshot wounds that killed them. In the aftermath, Rep. Auchincloss attempted to secure meaningful gun-safety legislation among moderate Republicans. (Rep. Auchincloss had been a Republican earlier in his political career.) He said that the responses from the moderate Republicans he approached included:
- Mental health issues are the cause of gun violence.
- Gun safety laws might impinge on 2nd Amendment rights.
- People want to be able to hunt. (“With AR-15s?,” Rep. Auchincloss asked his audience.)
In addition to gun-safety measures, Rep. Auchincloss recommends removing the legal protections currently in place for gun manufacturers. Republicans in swing districts “are out of step with their constituents,” he said, noting that people generally support gun-safety legislation. Through Beyond Thoughts and Prayers – named for a common statement of sympathy offered at times by officials who otherwise take no action to prevent further shootings – Rep. Auchincloss plans to change the voices and votes in Congress.
Among the colleagues to whom Rep. Auchincloss and his PAC have contributed is Congresswoman Lucy McBath, a Black Representative from suburban Atlanta. She told the rapt audience in Newton that she was “one of the most unlikely” people to run for Congress, having spent thirty years as a flight attendant. Her political activism was ignited when a White man at a Florida gas station shot and killed her teenage son, an only child. The boy was in the backseat of a car with friends when the man objected to loud music on the car radio. Having fought and struggled to get a full conviction for his killer, McBath determined that she would become an anti-gun-violence activist. She said that the Parkland shooting was “the last straw.” “Somebody has to go stand up against the NRA,” she said. “People should not be afraid to go to church or synagogue or anywhere else, because of their concern about gun violence,” she declared.
She praised the Biden administration for establishing an Office of Gun Violence Protection in the White House. Noting that her district has been gerrymandered twice, she said that elected officials should not have the power to determine who gets to vote for them. Crediting Rep. Auchincloss’s efforts, she said, “Jake makes such a difference for people like me in Congress.”
Concluding the evening’s formal presentation, Rep. Auchincloss invited State Senator Cynthia Creem, who is Majority Leader in the State House, to talk about her legislative efforts to expand gun-safety laws in Massachusetts. Acknowledging that “Newton is way above the curve” in supporting gun safety, she expressed concerns about trigger switches that convert guns like Glocks into assault weapons (although they are illegal in Massachusetts) and 3D printers that can produce ghost guns out of plastics, with no serial numbers, making them untraceable. Both the Massachusetts House and Senate have passed legislation to strengthen gun laws, and she and State Representative Michael Day now co-chair a Conference Committee to align legislation that will modernize Massachusetts firearms laws.
