Bloomberg Challenges NRA on Gun Safety, Joins Forces with Newtown's "Moms Demand Action" Group

Posted by Paula Antolini

After the recent shooting tragedies in Tucson, Aurora and Newtown, and President Obama's failure to get stricter gun control laws, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has made it his mission and formed a new gun control group called "Everytown for Gun Safety," to gain support for stricter gun control "to make sure criminals, minors and people with psychiatric problems do not get guns," Bloomberg said.  The group will focus on going against the influence of the National Rifle Association (NRA). He plans on spending $50 million to establish this grassroots gun control lobbying group. This is more than double the $20 million that the NRA spends annually on political activities.

With two other gun control groups, "Mayors Against Illegal Guns" and Newtown's  "Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America," Bloomberg's main strategy will be to build a nationwide group and first concentrate on promoting state and national background checks for gun buyers. He will also focus on outreach to Moms and women, instead of lobbying.

The news about "Everytown for Gun Safety" was first reported by the NY Times, and Bloomberg, who is Chairman of the new organization, also appeared on NBC's Today Show this morning with "Moms Demand Action" founder Shannon Watts, who got involved after the Newtown shooting tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and whose group is part of this new initiative from Bloomberg.  

"In many ways this is about emotion, and how I've said before, you know, the gun lobby has done a good job over the last 40 years making a local minority afraid, of people taking their guns away. As a mother, I am afraid someone is going to take my children away, and at the end of the day I believe that emotion will carry it," Watts said on the Today Show.

Bloomberg said that we now have 16 states that have instituted background checks at gun shows and internet sales at the state level, and more states are going to do same, along with passing referendums on domestic violence and weapons. "So we really are making progress," he said.  

"This is a battle for the hearts and minds of America so that we can protect our children and innocent people. If you take a look at the number of people who commit suicide using illegal guns, or the number of people killed every year, we are the only civilized country in the word that has this problem.  We have to do something, and if you want to know how tough this is, go to one of the funerals and you look at the parents, look in their eyes, and you'll see what real tragedy is and why we really have to do something," Bloomberg stated on the Today Show.

Watts said, "We are going to go out and educate Moms and women and Americans over the next months before the midterms, meaning to get at least one million Americans to vote on this issue.  Right now women vote on abortion, health care and jobs, we want that to be violence prevention and gun violence prevention."

"This isn't about gun control. This is about people not being able to buy a gun," Bloomberg said.  "Nobody's going to take anybody's gun away.  Nobody's going to keep you from hunting or target practice or protecting yourself.  It's just making sure that a handful of people, who we all agree shouldn't have guns, don't get their hands on them," Bloomberg said.