Content warning: discussions of gun violence, murder

Indivisibles,

This was not the message we planned to send you. Tonight, we thought we were going to send you an email discussing the results of the Georgia and Texas primaries. But as has happened far, far too many times, we are reeling from the news of a devastating mass shooting. 

This afternoon, a man opened fire at Robb Elementary School, where he killed 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas. This horrific act follows just days after a white supremacist walked into a grocery store with a gun in Buffalo and murdered 10 people. 

We know your hearts are breaking just as ours are for all of the families torn apart by today’s senseless action. We feel outraged, scared, furious, sorrowful. And we feel betrayed. Because all of us who believe that every person deserves to live in safety and freedom know our elected officials have the power to stop these atrocities. But the very same people expressing their "thoughts and prayers" on Twitter right now are the same people who will take the stage at the NRA later this week, who will make it easier for people to get guns and take more innocent lives, who will stand in the way of passing any meaningful policies to end the violence.

Gun violence is not inevitable. Don’t allow the Republican party, bought and paid for by the NRA, to talk about this as though mass shootings just happen. It is a choice. When they are too cowardly to acknowledge who is at fault, they will allow this to happen again, and again, and again, and again. And again. 

In Uvalde, in Buffalo, in Aurora, in Parkland, in every state in this nation, a dangerous cocktail of guns, hatred and political inaction is costing us our lives. We refuse to let it go on. No more.

In order to stop these tragedies, we must defeat and throw out Republicans that work for the NRA, prop up the gun lobby, and stand in complicity with these massacres. Each time these monstrous acts occur, they choose to allow mass shootings so they can hold onto political power. And it's the innocent who pay the ultimate price. It’s time to hold them accountable.

Senator Schumer started the process tonight to force a vote in the Senate on Enhanced Background Checks, a bill that has already passed the House. We are furious that Senator Manchin has said he will do "all he can" to address this plague of violence, yet is unwilling to change the filibuster to do it. His words are empty and insulting, and mean that this bill would need 60 votes to pass -- and that means 10 Republican votes.

We’ll be honest: having seen their cowardice and abandonment in the other crises our nation has faced, we are not willing to peddle false hope that 10 Republicans of good conscience can be found in the Senate today. But this is a place where we yearn to be wrong. Or if we're right, a place where we vow to make it as painful for them as possible, if they once again pledge their allegiance to the gun lobby over the lives of our children. 

Click here to see how much your senators have received from the gun lobby. And with the shaking outrage of that knowledge, call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and demand that they vote yes on the background check bill.

In solidarity,
Indivisible Team