A messaging & digital organizing playbook · Ed. 2026
Naming state-sanctioned violence as gun violence. A practical, sourced field guide for organizers who refuse to look away when the shooter wears a badge.
Co-authored by Luis Jonathan Hernández & Michelle Monterrosa
"Police shootings are gun violence. So is all state-sanctioned violence. The badge does not change the bullet."
When a stranger opens fire in a school or on a street corner, the gun violence prevention movement knows exactly what to do. We name the victim. We hold the vigil. We demand action and we stand with the family for as long as it takes. But when the shooter wears a badge, that same movement too often goes quiet. The Badge Doesn't Change the Bullet exists to close that gap.
Published by Youth Over Guns in partnership with The Sean Monterrosa Project, this is a messaging and digital organizing playbook for treating police and other state-sanctioned shootings as what they are: gun violence. It is grounded in sourced national data and built for organizers, communications teams, and movement partners ready to respond to state violence with the same urgency and care they bring to every other shooting.
What's inside
The frame
Why this is gun violence
The numbers
What the data shows, and how to cite it with discipline
Three names
The pattern, not the exception
How to talk about it
Language to use, language to drop
Rapid response
A plan for the first 72 hours after a killing
Standing with families
Concrete, unglamorous, lasting support
Plug-and-play language
Statements, social posts, and press lines, ready to adapt
