A gun control petition created in the wake of Friday’s Connecticut school shooting is gaining steam rapidly, garnering thousands of signatures and the support of many high-profile politicians.
The online gun control petition calling on President Obama to take immediate action on gun control gained the necessary signatures within hours, The Blaze noted. While details from the Connecticut school shooting were still being discovered, many people flocked to sign the petition.
By Saturday evening, the petition had more than 106,000 signatures.
“The goal of this petition is to force the Obama Administration to produce legislation that limits access to guns,” the petition reads. “While a national dialogue is critical, laws are the only means in which we can reduce the number of people murdered in gun related deaths.”
The White House recently started a “We the People” petition site that allows anyone to start their own petition calling for the White House to take action. Those that receive 25,000 signatures within a month are passed along to President Obama and get an official response — the gun control petition got to that point in less than a day.
The gun control petition noted that there are some high-powered lobby groups standing as a blockade to true gun control, as the Constitution intended.
“Powerful lobbying groups allow the ownership of guns to reach beyond the Constitution’s intended purpose of the right to bear arms,” the petition states. “Therefore, Congress must act on what is stated law, and face the reality that access to firearms reaches beyond what the Second Amendment intends to achieve.”
The gun control petition also has the support of some high-profile politicians and interest groups, Reuters noted.
“The side for reasonable gun laws has to make politicians who oppose them cringe in terror about their reelection prospects,” said Jim Kessler, senior vice president for policy at Third Way, a Democratic group that takes a moderate approach to gun control.
“The NRA has done that pretty well,” Kessler said, “And the other side needs to do that, too. That’s the fight they’re in.”
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has also stood behind the gun control petition. He has a super PAC, independence USA, that is focused on electing politicians who support gun control and defeating those who oppose it.
