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| Perpetually angry at something gun related |
There’s a certain absurdity baked into the gun control movement, a kind of tragicomic repetition that would make even Sisyphus wince. Everyone on that side of the debate seems compelled to start their own little outfit, each one parroting the same tired lines as the last, as if the sheer volume of organizations might somehow drown out the Second Amendment.
March for Our Lives at least had the decency to carve out a niche, focusing on America’s youth—a group typically more preoccupied with their phones than with policy. Born from the blood and anguish of Parkland, spearheaded by survivors who turned trauma into a megaphone, it burst onto the scene with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Money flowed in, headlines followed, and for a moment, it looked like they might actually shift the tectonic plates of American gun culture.
But apparently not enough money flowed in to keep the lights on, as the group has just sacked most of its full-time staff—a pruning so severe it’s less a trim and more a clear-cut.
March For Our Lives is slashing its employees and anointing a new leader. Last week, the gun-control crusaders announced they’d be parting ways with 13 of their 16 full-time staffers—leaving a rump outfit that could barely man a picket line, let alone a movement. They’ve also tapped Jaclyn Corin, a 24-year-old Parkland survivor and co-founder, as their new executive director, thrusting her into the unenviable role of captaining a ship that’s sprung more leaks than a pair of Biden's 3-week-old skivvies.
“We are facing financial challenges as an organization, not unlike many nonprofit advocacy organizations in this time,” Corin told The 19th, with the sort of measured resignation you’d expect from someone watching their dreams sink into the quicksand of reality. “I am sure things would look differently with a different outcome of the election, but these are the systems and circumstances in which we have to make adjustments based on the financial situation we find ourselves in. It is incredibly unfortunate that these cuts have to happen.”
This isn’t just a stumble—it’s a face-plant for one of America’s loudest anti-gun voices. With the midterms looming, their ability to influence anything beyond a Twitter thread is now in serious doubt. It’s the culmination of a slow, pitiful decline from the dizzying heights of their early days—a fall from grace that’s been as predictable as it is painful to watch.
When I first saw the headline and dug into the piece, my mind went straight to DOGE—the Musk-Trump efficiency juggernaut—taking a flamethrower to the NGO gravy train. The money wasn’t meant to go directly to gun control groups, of course, but we all know the game: it gets funneled through pass-through entities, those clever little NGOs that scoop up USAID cash and sprinkle it onto anti-gun campaigns like confetti at a protest. With that spigot now largely shut off, I suspect we’re witnessing the first tremors of a broader reckoning for these outfits.
That said, I wouldn’t pin it all on DOGE’s budget axe. March For Our Lives was showing signs of distress before Trump swaggered back into the Oval Office and Musk started slashing government waste with the zeal of a man who’d rather be colonizing Mars. The rot, it seems, was already setting in.
The numbers tell a grim tale. Public records show fundraising at its two nonprofit arms has cratered. The non-political foundation went from $2.2 million in 2022 to $1.4 million in 2023, landing more than $300,000 in the red—a shortfall that’s less a hiccup and more a financial coronary. Its political advocacy wing fared worse, plunging from $7 million in 2022 to under $3.5 million the next year. Both bled deficits, and neither came close to the $18.6 million war chest they amassed in 2018’s heady days.
We don’t have 2024’s figures yet, but Corin’s comments suggest the bleeding hasn’t stopped—it’s just gotten messier. She admits they overreached, took on more than they could sustain, and watched the cash evaporate.
Michael Bloomberg could’ve plugged the gap with the loose change from his Mayfair townhouse, but he didn’t. I’d wager the laid-off staffers are mulling that over as they draft their CVs.
What we’re seeing here is a classic case of hubris meeting reality. They rode a tsunami of donations in 2018, assumed the well would never run dry, and built their operation on the shaky premise that the cheques would keep coming. They didn’t. Inflation bit, ordinary Americans tightened their belts, and even the deep-pocketed donors got stingier—perhaps tiring of a cause that’s starting to feel like a broken record.
Rather than adapt, they clung to optimism, hoping the tide would turn. It didn’t, and now they’re binning over 80 percent of their full-time staff—including, presumably, the very people tasked with shaking the money tree. A bold strategy, if your goal is to accelerate your own irrelevance.
March for Our Lives stormed in with righteous fury and a fat bankroll, but it’s limping out as a cautionary tale: even the loudest voices fade when the cash runs dry. They wanted to change America. Instead, they’ve just reminded us that idealism, unchecked by pragmatism, ends up as little more than ash.
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