Forget Google+ Hangouts with Vice President Joe Biden and Snoop Lion’s “No Guns Allowed” song — the best way to promote gun control is by dressing up children in cow suits.
At Tuesday’s “Don’t Be Cowed by the Gun Lobby” event, about 25 moms with their ‘calves’ gathered in the Hart Senate Building to urge U.S. Senators “to mooo-ve forward gun safety legislation and choose families and communities over the gun lobby.”
Adorned in store-bought cow costumes, whimpering infants and rambunctious toddlers crawled around the large statue in the building’s atrium while moms and MomsRising executive director Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner advocated for universal background checks and criticized Senators who voted against the measure back in April.
“We’re very small cows with a very big purpose,” Rowe-Finkbeiner said during the demonstration’s press conference. “We’re here for a serious reason [and] we’re not afraid to ‘moo’ about it.”
That serious reason however, was taken a bit less seriously when a young boy in a cow hat began crawling around Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.V.) feet as he delivered a speech on the importance of adopting universal background checks for potential gun owners.
“The piece of legislation we put together is the most commonsense approach,” Sen. Manchin told the audience. “We can make our community safer, we can make our schools safer.”
Following Manchin’s brief speech, Marine Corps Veteran and member of MomsRising, Charlotte Brock, offered her testimony explaining why she believes universal background checks on gun owners should be implemented.
“Before a weapon is ever issued to a [Marine Corps] recruit, they must pass a background check and psychological exam,” Brock said. “Why is it that we out here, where our children live, have so few laws and regulations regarding gun ownership and purchasing weapons?”
Brock and the rest of the moms in attendance felt more should be done. Thus, following the press conference, the moms and their children visited several Senators’ offices who voted down the universal background check measure, delivering to them stuffed animal cows and key chains that read “Please don’t be ‘cowed’ by the gun lobby.”
“We’re fully committed,” Rowe-Finkbeiner said at the end of the press conference. “Some might say we’re ‘udderly’ committed.”
UPDATE: An earlier version of this article stated that Brock is a D.C. resident, when she is actually a Virginia resident.
