The National Rifle Association is in a quandary. The organization's leadership, which is sullied by a long history of sexism and misogyny, must continue to grow its market for guns in order to protect gun manufacturers' profits. Over the past decade, more guns have been sold to fewer people - mainly men. As a result, gun manufacturers desperately need women to start buying guns.
Yet, at the same time, NRA leaders have made a concerted effort to alienate the very audience they need so badly to buy their products. Earlier this year, they posted a sleazy video online that compares women to guns. NRA lobbyists have been caught explaining how stalking could be "speech protected under the First Amendment" and domestic violence is just "disputes between family members." And they've called women who support commonsense gun safety measures like background checks "gullible."
In fact, in the new issue of the NRA's official publication for members, America's First Freedom, the gun lobby resorts to sexist attacks on me in an article, "Not Watts She Seems." The piece is rife with sexist language and imagery, false assumptions, quotes taken out of context, and tired misinformation campaigns by the gun lobby. But most egregious, the article is accompanied by this picture, in which I'm portrayed as a paper doll surrounded by pots, pans, an iron - and even a feather duster.
Outraged by this inflammatory portrayal of our members and grassroots movement, Moms Demand Action supporters have been tweeting at the NRA using the hashtag #MomsNotMaids.
While the NRA leadership is no stranger to sexist imagery and reductionist stereotypes, all this desperation begs the question: What are they afraid of?
Plain and simple, now that it has joined with Everytown for Gun Safety, Moms Demand Action and its grassroots network is the most effective counter-weight to the NRA in the history of gun violence prevention.
Since Moms Demand Action's founding less than two years ago, major American businesses like Target, Starbucks, Chili's and Chipotle listened to Moms Demand Action and took action to prevent the open carry of guns in their establishments.
And we've just taken on Kroger, the country's largest supermarket retailer, to do the same and ensure the safety of our families while we shop in their stores.
This year state legislatures in red and blue states alike - from Louisiana to Arizona, from Vermont to Minnesota - passed good policies or blocked bad ones because the two million supporters of Moms Demand Action and Everytown for Gun Safety mobilized for the cause.
And we are on the right side of American opinion. A poll from July 2014 found almost all (93 percent) women voters, including Republican and independents women voters, support background checks for all gun sales, and by a 3-to-1 margin, women will favor a candidate who supports this common-sense policy.
That's also why we're revving up our Gun Sense Voter campaign to turn out, for the first time, one million voters who will head to the polls in November and vote for laws and political leaders that will end gun violence.
No doubt, Moms Demand Action is in it for the long run - no matter how much mud the NRA's leadership and official publication slings at moms and women who want nothing more than to protect their children and families from gun violence. Unfortunately for NRA's leaders and gun manufacturers' profits, when it comes to their portrayal of modern-day American mothers, we're not buying what they're selling.