“Everytown for Gun Safety”: Gun Control Message Hidden Behind “Gun Safety” Video

Screen Shot 2014-04-17 at 12.26.43 PMAs I was waiting for a movie to start on YouTube, this commercial started to play:


Although, I usually hit “skip” when the button pops up, I couldn’t stop watching this commercial.  It is gripping, terrifying, and goes to the heart of many a mother’s deepest fears. When I first saw the commercial, I honestly couldn’t tell what message it intended to send.  Was the commercial simply about gun safety? Surely not.  However, it didn’t give off any indication that is was supporting anything other than gun safety which even the NRA supports.

I decided to research Everytown for Gun Safety further and what I found didn’t surprise me but still bothered me.  Everytown for Gun Safety is an umbrella organization bankrolled by Mayor Bloomberg and is joined with two other gun control organizations, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense and Mayors Against Illegal Guns.  The main reason Bloomberg founded this organization was to “minimize the influence of the NRA.” However, Everytown for Gun Safety won’t tell you that on their website.  On their website, the “Who We Are” link gives this explanation:

Everytown is a movement of Americans working together to end gun violence and build safer communities. Gun violence touches every town in America. For too long, change has been thwarted by the Washington gun lobby and by leaders who refuse to take common-sense steps that will save lives.

But something is changing. More than 1.5 million mayors, moms, cops, teachers, survivors, gun owners, and everyday Americans have come together to make their own communities safer. Together, we are fighting for the changes that we know will save lives.

Everytown starts with you, and it starts in your town.

To the average American that sounds pretty good, right? Who can argue with “common sense steps to save lives”?

So what issues is Everytown fighting for?

  • Background Checks: We want to close the loopholes that allow criminals and other dangerous people to buy guns without background checks.
  • Domestic Violence: We support laws that save lives by keeping guns away from domestic abusers.
  • Preventable Deaths: We can save lives by educating parents about safe gun storage and responsible gun ownership.
  • Gun Trafficking: We advocate for legislation that gives law enforcement the tools they need to shutdown trafficking channels and prosecute gun traffickers.

The reason this bothers me is because this organization and ad campaign are very effective.  They are striking at the very heart of what many Americans fear but at the same time making it sound like anything but gun control.  They are using politically correct words like “gun safety” and “common sense” to make their message more appealing to every day Americans.

The organization also understands that in order to win they have to have to use money to influence candidates and potential candidates.  According to CNN, “influencing those in charge of writing gun policy will be the ultimate goal of the organization, which is also creating a political action committee to elect gun safety candidates to office and a 501(c)(4), an IRS classification used to raise unlimited amounts of money to influence voters. It aims to motivate a million pro-gun safety voters to go to the polls in November”.

Even though we know this is simply another push to control the average American’s guns, this is not an organization that we, as supporters of the Second Amendment, can simply ignore. Everytown for Gun Safety has money, a powerful ad campaign, and a message that could appeal to many low-information voters and has the ability to change the narrative regarding gun control in the very near future.

Everytown for Gun Safety proves that the fight for gun rights is far from over rather it is just beginning.

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