Michael Bloomberg Aims Against the NRA

abril 17, 2014
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Michael Bloomberg, 72, who left his post as Mayor of New York last January wants to stand up to one of the most powerful conservative institutions in the country, the National Rifle Association(NRA).

Bloomberg, owner of one of the biggest fortunes of in the US, will invest 50 million dollars in pressuring politicians and convince voters of the need to limit access to firearms, as stated in an interview to the New York Times. He will do so through an organization level citizen who will try to counter the influence of the NRA.

The initiative has the name of Everytown for Gun Safety and will have women – mothers in particular – as one of its major stakeholders. Its strategy will focus on increasing controls of the background checks of buyers, and not so much to prohibit the sale of certain weapons. Instead of huge amounts of money on television advertising campaigns, Everytown will mimic the work of the NRA, which strives to convince citizens of nearby ideology who go to vote for candidates who support their positions.

«We must do the job, person to person. One mother after another. You have to wear them until they say ‘enough’, Bloomberg told Rotary New Yorker. The strategy pursues the positive results that have had other campaigns focused on mothers, such as Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), which sought to raise awareness against driving under the influence of alcohol.

Everytown is the umbrella under which the two organizations for the control of weapons that, until now, had financed Bloomberg, are Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. It will focus on fifteen States, some who have already advanced in the limitation of access to weapons, such as Colorado and Washington State; and others hostile to these campaigns, such as Texas, Montana and Indiana. The aim is to this year, in which legislative elections are held, add a million followers to the million and a half with those who already have these organizations.

«He has money to splurge,» said Larry Pratt, executive director of the platform pro-arms Gun Owners of America, in reference to Bloomberg. «So there is no problem with which to do so. But, frankly, it seems to me that you will realize why his faction always loses.

The truth is that so far the millions that Bloomberg has invested in the control of weapons, focused to convince members of Congress, have fallen on deaf ears. And it is unclear how the current initiative will be received in rural and conservative areas where the use of weapons is part of their idiosyncrasy and where Bloomberg is seen as a multimillionaire Democrat who forbids you to enjoy a liter and a half soda.

Bloomberg says that his reputation is not as negative as many think, and he has recruited personalities from across the political spectrum to support the project. In the Advisory Board of Everytown figures sit like Tom Ridge, former Pennsylvania Governor and Secretary of Homeland Security with President George w. Bush; the philanthropist Eli Broad, the investor Warren Buffett and Michael Mullen, who was Chairman of Chiefs of staff with Bush and Barack Obama.

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