Mayors against Illegal Guns and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America have joined forces to form Everytown for Gun Safety, a new group dedicated to fighting the National Rifle Association to campaign for sensible gun laws. Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is putting his name, and at least $50 million of his money, into Everytown’s campaign.
The Everytown effort kicked off with the video above, which already has hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube in just one day. The video, and the Everytown campaign launch as a whole, is focused primarily on moms. As Shannon Watts of Moms Demand Action said today:
The gun lobby has done a good job over the last 30 years of making a vocal minority afraid people will take their guns away. I’m afraid someone’s going to take my children away.
That sounds just like something Messaging Matters called for in December 2012, i.e., a “conservative argument for gun control” based on “right to life.” We also don’t think it’s an accident that the Everytown ad is so powerful, as it follows some basic Messaging Maxims, including Maxim #1: Go on Offense, Maxim #5: Make it Personal and Maxim #6: Keep it Stupidly Simple.
Everytown will focus on “common sense steps that will save lives.” These steps include trying to get laws passed that close the gun show loophole, and deny the ability of felons, terrorists, children, and those adjudicated as mentally incompetent or domestic abusers to purchase firearms.
Some viewers no doubt will find the first Everytown video shocking. For our part, we think a little shock treatment is just what is needed to take on the gun manufacturer’s trade group known as the NRA, which has proven to be one of the most irresponsible, least caring of human life organizations in the history of the world.
