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John — Mariah Cooley here, board member for March For Our Lives. We just published our 2022 Impact Report, and I’m excited to share the highlights with you. In the last five years since our youth-led movement sprang from the 2018 Parkland school shooting, we’ve won lifesaving victories at the state and federal level. You and I are up against a HUGE and entrenched gun lobby that for decades seemed too big to challenge. Everyone told us we couldn’t take them on, but we did, and we won. We’re only just now starting to reap the benefits of our hard work but I’m excited to celebrate them with you as we gear for the next battle. Below are just a few of the ways your support has saved real lives, and made tangible change these last five years. In 2022, we won the first federal gun safety law in 30 years. We marched on D.C. again, with hundreds of thousands of young people, survivors, and grassroots activists joining 450 sibling marches across the country. The day after we marched, Senator Chris Murphy introduced the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act.
We drove record-high youth turnout in the midterm election. We recruited and trained young people to mobilize their peers to the polls, created scorecards to help voters evaluate candidates on their commitment to gun safety, and reached millions of voters. In Florida, our former organizing director, Maxwell Frost, became the first Gen Z member of Congress!
We passed historic gun safety measures in 11 states and blocked the NRA’s agenda in many more. Our volunteers organized lobby days across the country, getting youth and survivors directly in front of elected officials to demand action. With our help, California banned ghost guns, New Jersey now requires training and permits, and Delaware has banned assault weapons and raised the minimum age to purchase to 21. Since our founding five years ago, 250 gun safety laws have been passed across the country!
John, I know it can feel like there is no way we can end this vicious cycle, but if there is one thing I want you to hear today it’s this: there is hope. Our impact report is proof that we are making progress in our fight for a country safe from gun violence — where every child can go to school free from fear.
From the bottom of my heart: thank you. This work would be impossible without you. Sincerely, Mariah Cooley
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