After the Sandy Hook shooting, Shannon Watts, a public relations executive who falsely presented herself as just another midwestern mom OUTRAGED by gun violence, founded the infelicitously named Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.
She founded the anti-gun rights advocacy group, which received a lot of positive press from like-minded media.
In 2013, the Hoplophobic Harridan in Chief sold Moms Demand Action to gun control tycoon Michael Bloomberg for an undisclosed sum.
Since then, she’s been on Mayor Mike’s Everytown payroll as a dependable, red-shirted sock puppet, promoting due-process-free red flag laws, gun bans, magazine capacity limits, confiscations, and any other violation of Second Amendment rights that came into her telegenic head.
Until now, that is. Bloomberg announced her departure earlier this week via Twitter.
Over the past decade, @ShannonRWatts has transformed @MomsDemand from a Facebook page into one of the most powerful and effective advocacy groups in the country.
— Mike Bloomberg (@MikeBloomberg) January 9, 2023
He linked to a conveniently-timed WaPo hagiography announcing her departure.
From the WaPo article:
“I have asked myself, honestly, every year since I started this organization: Is it time for me to step back and let other people step forward?” Watts, 52, said in an exclusive interview with The Washington Post to announce her decision. “And I think this is the right time.”
Gosh, why do you suppose that is? Why now? Surely she could have gone on, collecting piles of Bloombucks, year after year. And the WaPo dutifully touts her advocacy prowess, claiming her influence has eclipsed that of the NRA over the last ten years.
Although she denies opposing the Second Amendment, gun-rights groups have long portrayed her as an enemy of the Constitution who wants legal weapons confiscated. In its many denunciations, the NRA has called her a “#2A-hating lobbyist,” accused her of promoting “nearly every gun control measure” and described her Twitter feed as a “fevered anti-gun stream-of-consciousness.”
So why quit then?
Maybe Watts, who isn’t stupid, has surveyed the gun control landscape and decided that now is actually a very good time to get the hell out of the gun control business. Being an advocate for limiting Americans’ Second Amendment rights in a post-Bruen world isn’t nearly as much fun as it used to be. Gun control laws are facing unprecedented challenges from all sides and adverse court opinions are incoming at an almost head-spinning rate.
Or maybe she’s taken an honest look back over the last decade of her work as a prominent cog in the Civilian Disarmament Industrial Complex and realized that in that span, constitutional carry has expanded from four to twenty-five states. It seems that Americans simply don’t agree with her and have moved decicively in the other direction.
With anti-gun advocacy as effective as that, maybe the pro-gun should think about pooling its resources to make her an offer she can’t refuse, just to keep doing what she’s been doing.
The WaPo, which clearly got an exclusive on the story, goes on and on (and on) singing her praises, but concludes with this:
In 2018, she traveled to Portland, Ore., for a gathering of Moms Demand volunteers, and when she walked into the meeting room in her red T-shirt, a woman at the front asked her to sign in, so she did.
“Could you help us set up chairs?” the woman asked next.
“Sure,” Watts replied, and she did that, too.
The interaction, she said, was thrilling.
“She had no idea who I was,” Watts recalled. “And I thought, ‘This is what a healthy organization looks like.’ It isn’t about me. It is about them.”
Can you even believe that there’s anyone who didn’t know who Shannon Watts was?
For now, let’s all take a moment to bid her a fond farewell, though we’re sure she isn’t gone for good. She likely has a lucrative job in academia or fellowship at a lefty think tank lined up. Or maybe she has plans for a run for elected office. Whatever the future holds, we haven’t heard the last of Shannon Watts.
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