**Warning-Don’t read this on a full stomach. It has MMM’s in it***

http://www.bergen.com/news/momfololb200006237.htm

Million Moms march into campaign season
Friday, June 23, 2000

By LESLIE BRODY
Staff Writer

The boosters of the Million Mom March are marching on.

The gun-control group that staged a Mother’s Day rally in Washington is setting up chapters across the country, including ones in Bergen, Passaic, and Morris counties.

They aim to organize rallies, lobby politicians, raise money, and publicize endorsements of favorite candidates in the November elections. Their top priority is pushing for federal laws to mandate the registration of all handguns and licensing of handgun owners.

“People kept asking, ‘Is this going to be like the Million Man March that went up in thin air?’ ” said Kae Mcguire, director of field services at the Million Mom March Foundation, based in San Francisco. “I can emphatically say that is not the case.”

The National Rifle Association says it’s building momentum too, and reports that its membership has grown by 300,000 in the past three months.

Million Mom March organizer Carole Stewart of Dumont, who recruited Bergen protesters, has applied to start a Bergen County chapter. She says there’s widespread commitment to the cause; last week she e-mailed local marchers to appeal for shoes, which will be used as props in a “silent march” in Philadelphia on July 29, on the eve of the Republican Convention. The empty shoes represent victims of gun violence.

Stewart received promises for a thousand pairs of shoes within two days of her e-mail. “The level of interest is still here, which is amazing,” she said.

Stewart and about 50 other chapter organizers in the New York area attended a training session last weekend to learn more about managing the mission. The Million Mom March Foundation, which has 13 full-time workers plus an array of part-timers, is creating a national database of people who want to volunteer.

After the May 14 rally, the Million Mom March backers merged with the Bell Campaign in San Francisco, a year-old gun-control group that already had a $4.3 million private grant. So far, 191 counties nationwide have applied to start a chapter, including 12 in New Jersey. The foundation models its structure after Mothers Against Drunk Driving.

Meanwhile, the Second Amendment Sisters, who led a counter-demonstration on Mother’s Day to oppose further restrictions on the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of the right to bear arms, say they are also recruiting new members.

“We don’t have the money and power of the Bell Campaign behind us, but we’re not giving up,” said Marilyn Lapidus of Chester. “Criminals will never register their firearms; they’ll get them illegally no matter how. . . . Registration will only set up a database for the government to confiscate my guns.”

The NRA says it has an all-time high of 3.7 million members. Spokesman Bill Powers said the group plans to spend more than $10 million on political campaigns before the November elections.

Powers credited the rise in NRA membership largely to the “biased media coverage” of the gun-control debate, which motivated gun owners who “want the full enforcement of existing laws rather than new restrictions on law-abiding citizens.”

Donna Dees-Thomases, a Short Hills mother who began organizing the Million Mom March in August, plans to join a chapter, but not to run one. She intends to return to her part-time job as a CBS publicist soon. “The best way to fight gun violence is at the local level,” she said. “We have a long haul ahead of us.”

Some supporters of the Million Mom March haven’t heard much about its continuing efforts and worry the campaign has petered out. “I feel like it did kind of drop dead,” said Cindy Capitani of Lyndhurst, who is editor of four south Bergen weeklies published by The Leader Newspapers Inc.

“I personally put a bumper sticker on my car, sent postcards to legislators, and wrote an editorial about it, but something else has to be done,” she said. “It will probably be a five-year investment before we see any change.”

Naomi Gamorra of Glen Rock, who organized buses for 400 marchers from Bergen, said supporters have to revive their energy. She got “completely burned out” from the frenzy of planning the rally and had to take time off from volunteering, but feels compelled to rejoin the movement.

“It’s so easy to be complacent,” Gamorra said. “You get involved with your own life and your kids’ schools. . . . But with the gun issue, you have to keep remembering all those children who got killed.”

For more information, see www.millionmommarch.com, www.nra.org, or www.sas-aim.org. Staff Writer Leslie Brody’s e-mail address is [email protected]