INDIANAPOLIS — The newly formed gun control advocacy group Everytown for Gun Safety released a new ad Friday featuring survivors of mass shootings like Virginia Tech in 2007 and Aurora, Colo., in 2012 as the National Rifle Association kicked off its annual meetings here.
The 30-second ad, titled “Not Our Words,” features survivors quoting gun rights supporters, like NRA executive vice president and CEO Wayne LaPierre’s saying “the presence of a firearm makes us all safer.”
At a press conference in the state’s capital, the group unveiled the ad and a new report detailing NRA leaders’ efforts to derail gun-related legislation and push laws like ones that allow people to carry guns into bars.
Former New York City Mayor Michael I. Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns group recently partnered with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a grassroots movement borne out of the December 2012 school shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., that claimed the lives of 20 children and six educators.
The new product is the “Everytown” group, which hopes to mobilize a million voters on the gun issue for the midterms in November and claims 1.5 million supporters nationwide. Mr. Bloomberg himself has pledged to spend at least $50 million on the issue this year.
SEE ALSO: NRA’s LaPierre: Country ‘slipping away,’ gun owners ‘willing to fight’ for control
The gun rights group responded by releasing its own video suggesting that they’re the ones who have the strength in numbers.
“This guy thinks he can scare us into running from a fight to protect our rights and our freedoms,” one person says in the video. “He’s one guy with millions. We’re millions with our 25 bucks. Let’s see who crushes who.”
A one-year membership in the NRA costs $25.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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