- The gun control group will focus more on field work and less on TV advertising
- Everytown for Gun Safety will become the umbrella for other gun control groups
- The effort will target 15 states
- Moms are the key outreach demographic
(CNN) -- Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg plans to spend $50 million this year through his new group Everytown for Gun Safety to counter the influence of the National Rifle Association, a spokeswoman said Tuesday.
Women, and more particularly moms, will be the key demographic in the outreach to curb gun violence, Everytown for Gun Safety spokeswoman Erika Soto Lamb told CNN.
The news was first reported by the New York Times.
"You've got to work at it piece by piece," Bloomberg told the newspaper. "One mom and another mom. You've got to wear them down until they finally say, 'Enough.'"
Everytown for Gun Safety will serve as an umbrella organization for Bloomberg's two gun control groups -- Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America.
The effort will target 15 states. And it will focus more on grass-roots organizing than on television ads, Lamb told CNN.
From gun-friendly states like Texas, Montana and Indiana to states like Colorado and Washington state where gun control initiatives have recently advanced, thanks in large part to the intense lobbying of the NRA.
"I don't want to lay blame anywhere, but it is a reality that the gun lobby has an incredible amount of political influence with members of Congress in Washington," Mark Kelly, a prominent gun control advocate, told CNN in December. Kelly's wife is former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was severely wounded in a shooting in Arizona in 2011.
"I mean, it's very clear that many members take their cues on this issue from the gun lobby," he said.
According to the New York Times, Bloomberg's strategy will seek to expand the background checks for gun buyers.
Source: Top Stories - Google News - http://ift.tt/1m7yLR7
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