Celebs Team Up To Show How Easy It Is To Call Congress

The video shows how easy it is to call your rep and have your voice heard on gun safety

Celebrities are banding together with the non-profit Everytown for Gun Safety to lend their voices to the cause of stopping the NRA from influencing members of Congress when it comes to gun safety laws.

Their new video arms citizens with everything needed to call their reps and voice their opposition to the NRA’s dangerous agenda.

There are two main causes the gun lobby is currently championing that Everytown is aiming to prevent: gutting silencer laws and concealed carry reciprocity. The video, titled Call Congress to #RejecttheNRA, explains the easiest way to contact your representative and let them know where you stand.

The clip features Emma Stone, Julianne Moore, Bill Hader, Melissa McCarthy, Sheryl Crow, Adam Scott and many other famous names who want to show how simple it is to call your rep and have your voice heard.

They explain how all you need to do is text “REJECT” to 644-33 and be connected to Everytown for Gun Safety, who will then call and put you through to your congressional rep.

No one likes making actual phone calls in these text-y times, and Everytown is aware of that fear. That’s why they’ve taken every step to make the call as brainless and anxiety-free as possible. They even provide a script of what to say and a reminder that you probably won’t even get a live person.

“Don’t be intimidated by making that call. I used to be in Congress. You’re gonna get voicemail.”

Everytown tells Scary Mommy about the risks of gutting silencer laws and the bill, called the Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act or SHARE Act, that the NRA is trying to push through. It would “remove silencers from supervision under the National Firearms Act, which would make it easy for convicted felons, domestic abusers and people with dangerous mental illnesses to buy silencers without a background check, simply by finding an unlicensed seller.”

With a silencer, deadly shootings like the recent one in Las Vegas would be even deadlier, as people wouldn’t hear the gunshots as quickly if they’re not as loud, which would give them less time to escape. Everytown also points out that the only reason the NRA is pushing this law is for profit, as the group recently learned the bill was written by the silencer companies. It’s enough to give you chills.

The other priority for the gun lobby is concealed carry reciprocity, which Everytown tells us is, “a ploy to gut state gun laws and turn the weakest state’s gun laws into nationwide laws.” As it is, states all have their own very different standards for who can carry a concealed and loaded gun in public. “Some states have strong standards, while others have weaker standards, including 12 states that don’t require a permit for a person to carry a concealed gun in public and 19 states that don’t require any safety training,” they explain.

“Concealed carry reciprocity would not create a national standard for who can carry a hidden, loaded gun in public, and would make our communities less safe by forcing every state to accept the concealed carry standards of every other state, no matter how weak or nonexistent another state’s standards may be.”

Basically, it would nullify the tougher laws in states where concealed carry is more difficult to do, which means more loaded guns in public places. A reality many of us would do anything to prevent.

As Everytown’s video points out, there are very easy things we can do to help stop these laws from passing — such as making a quick phone call and reading off a brief, prepared script. These are scary times we live in, and the fact that some of our lawmakers are influenced by a group like the NRA is terrifying. But we’re still a democracy and our voices matter. If a deluge of 5-minute phone calls are what it takes to stop the NRA, we know there are millions of us willing to make that happen.