NoRA: Amy Schumer, Michael Moore, Jimmy Kimmel, and More Announce New Initiative to Combat the NRA
Famous gun-control advocates commemorated the 19th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting Friday by launching the No Rifle Association [NoRA] Initiative. The undertaking became public when TIME Magazine published an open letter from 100-plus NoRA members — including Amy Schumer, Michael Moore, Jill Soloway, Jimmy Kimmel, Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, Debra Messing, Jon Favreau, Amber Tamblyn, Bradley Whitford, Minnie Driver, Michael Ian Black, Constance Wu, Patton Oswalt, Alyssa Milano, and Annabella Sciorra — to National Rifle Association Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre.
“Your time signing checks in our blood is up,” reads the letter, whose authors are planning boycotts, demonstrations, voter registration drives, and cross-country art campaigns. “We'[r]e a diverse, non-partisan coalition of activists, artists, celebrities, writers, gun violence survivors, and policy experts. We’re going to shine a bright light on what you and your organization to do America…We’re coming for your money. We’re coming for your puppets. And we’re going to win.”
On the anniversary of Columbine and in support of the #NationalSchoolWalkout—
Our open letter to the @NRA and @waynelapierrejr.
Please share. #NoRA pic.twitter.com/fB6AHhnKkd
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) April 20, 2018
The letter references victims of mass killings in Newtown, Connecticut; Orlando and Parkland, Florida; Las Vegas, Nevada; and elsewhere, as well as the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012. Survivors of Parkland’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School massacre also led a National School Walkout today, comprised of an estimated 2,600 individual walkouts.
IndieWire has reached out to the NRA for comment.
Multiple NoRA pledges have deep personal connections to gun violence. Two women died and nine more people were injured during a showing of Schumer’s screenwriting debut, “Trainwreck,” in Lafayette, Louisiana. In her subsequent memoir, Schumer included a list of Congressional members who have accepted NRA dollars; she also paid tribute to the Lafayette victims on her recent wedding day, via Instagram.
Moore won the 2003 Best Documentary Oscar for “Bowling for Columbine,” a project galvanized by the Littleton, Colorado shooting (the NoRA letter criticizes the NRA for holding its annual convention 10 miles from the site, just two weeks later). Las Vegas native Kimmel cried during the first taping of his talk show after 59 people died last year while attending a concert at Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino, imploring President Trump to “Do something!”
NoRA member Milano told TIME that the initiative is funded by private donations, and $25,000 worth have been raised since February 2018. She also said that her cohorts will host events early tied to the NRA’s May 3-6 convention in Dallas, Texas.
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