Everytown Responds to Ambassador Susan Rice’s Appointment to Lead the Domestic Policy Council

Earlier this Year, Ambassador Rice Joined Everytown and Moms Demand Action’s “Demanding Women” Series to Discuss the Urgency of Addressing Gun Violence and Systemic Inequities During the COVID-19 Pandemic

NEW YORK –– Today, Everytown for Gun Safety and its grassroots networks, Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, responded to President-elect Joe Biden’s decision to appoint former Obama administration national security advisor and UN Ambassador Susan Rice to serve as Domestic Policy Advisor and Director of the White House Domestic Policy Council –– a role that will be instrumental in combating gun violence in America. 

“Ambassador Susan Rice recognizes that gun violence is one of the most urgent threats facing our country, and through this appointment, President-elect Biden is continuing to build the strongest gun safety administration in history,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “As Ambassador Rice said in our Demanding Women conversation this summer, ‘the American people want common-sense gun laws’ — and we’re excited to work with her to make that happen.”

“Ambassador Rice is committed to ending our gun violence epidemic, and she understands that COVID-19 has dramatically exacerbated our gun violence crisis, said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action. “Her appointment is proof positive that this administration is wasting no time in addressing the gun violence that takes 100 lives every day and wounds hundreds more. I know Ambassador Rice will be instrumental in helping tackle these dual public health crises.”

Ambassador Rice has long been a gun sense champion. Earlier this year, she joined Everytown and Moms Demand Actions’ “Demanding Women” series to discuss addressing gun violence and systemic inequities during the COVID-19 pandemic. Key quotes include: 

• On gun violence: “As a mother with kids in school, like any other parent, I just fear that their school could become the next target. As an African American mom and a woman, I can’t escape the reality that gun violence is the number one killer of Black children in this country. And as a policy leader, it’s unthinkable to me that even though vast majorities of Americans favor common-sense gun restrictions — universal background checks, bans on assault weapons — we have a very powerful lobby that has effectively prevented so much of that from being enacted. It’s absolutely outrageous, and it makes me as angry as anything.”
• On NRA allies: “Vote out those who are doing the NRA’s bidding and vote in those who would make change, That is absolutely essential.”
• On race in America: “The reality is — speaking as an African American woman, as painful as it is — there are too many ways that every day, people who look like me and my children and my nieces and nephews are not viewed as equal in this country. We face barriers and threats that other people don’t face, and so we have to begin by recognizing the systemic nature of it … These disparities persist, and they too require systemic solutions — solutions that finally and fully address these disparities for African Americans and other people of color in this country, so we can fulfill our national promise of being a truly equal society.” 
• On white supremacist violence: “The reality is that far more Americans have been killed by domestic terrorists with white supremacist leanings than by foreign terrorists in recent years on our soil. That should be a wake-up call to our federal institutions, our Justice Department, our Department of Homeland Security, to prioritize domestic terrorism — white nationalist terrorism — as the threat that it is.”

In 2018, Ambassador Rice also signed a letter led by National Security Action saying that gun violence is a national security issue –– and calling for U.S. leaders to “ban assault weapons, mandate background checks and waiting periods, and raise the minimum age to purchase guns.”