Gun safety advocates set their sights on elected office

ATLANTA (AP) — A gun safety advocacy group that began in 2012 after 20 young children were shot down in their classrooms has grown since then and is increasingly focusing on getting its members into elected office.

More than a thousand volunteer leaders from Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America gathered Friday at an Atlanta hotel for a twoday conference called Gun Sense University. The kickoff event included big-name supporters, like actress Julianne Moore and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, as well as survivors of gun violence.

A common refrain Friday was a push to run for office. A "Running for Office 101" training session on Friday drew nearly four dozen people.

One of them was DeAndra Yates from Indianapolis who got involved after her 13-yearold son was shot at a birthday party in February 2014. Now 17, her son DeAndre is a non-verbal quadriplegic.

She has another son, 14-year-old Darrius, and three stepsons, and Yates said she fears every day for their safety. She can't bear the thought of another mother having to go through what she did.

Her involvement with Moms Demand Action has inspired her and she sees elected office as a way to take her activism to the next level.

"It's one thing as a survivor to go speak and pull on their heartstrings, but actually being the one with power to make things change means a lot to me," she said.

Yates said she plans to run in the next few years, though she's not ready yet to say which office she might seek.

Shannon Watts, a mother of five in Indiana, started the Moms Demand Action Facebook page that grew into a movement the day after those 20 students and six educators were shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in December 2012. The group partnered with Mayors Against Illegal Guns, co-founded by Bloomberg, under the umbrella of Everytown for Gun Safety.

Watts knew nothing about America's gun laws or community organizing, but felt she had to do something after Sandy Hook.

"We built the plane as we flew it," she said during the conference kickoff event.