Everytown Kicking off Campaign With $300,000 in TV and Digital Ads, Urging Senate Passage of Background Check Legislation and “More Than Thoughts and Prayers” to Address Gun Violence Crisis
NEW YORK — Today, Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund unveiled its first TV and digital ads urging U.S. Senators to pass background check legislation, as part of a planned seven-figure ad campaign over the next several weeks and months.
The TV ads will run on national cable, and the digital ads will run nationally, weighted toward several battleground states.
WATCH the TV ad, “More Than Thoughts and Prayers.”
VIEW an example of the digital ads.
“We’re sending a message to the Senate that we need more than thoughts and prayers –– we need action, and that means passing lifesaving background check legislation,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “We’ll stop at nothing to get legislation through the Senate and onto the President’s desk, and this campaign is just the beginning.”
“We can’t and won’t accept that gun violence is just a fact of life, and we will never stop fighting for the hundred lives that are stolen by gun violence each day in this country,” said Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action. “It’s been 25 years since Congress last passed meaningful gun safety laws, and our grassroots volunteer network will be relentless in demanding more than thoughts and prayers, before more lives are lost.”
As part of Everytown’s seven-figure ad campaign, Everytown is also organizing grassroots events and mobilizing its grassroots network of six million Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action supporters in an unprecedented effort to call and message Senate offices to urge Senators to pass background check legislation backed by 93% of Americans –– including 89% of Republicans and 89% of gun owners.
The ad campaign follows last week’s mass shooting in Boulder, in which 10 people were shot and killed, and this month’s mass shooting in Atlanta, in which eight people were shot and killed –– including six Asian women –– and one wounded. More than 100 people in the U.S. are shot and killed by gun violence every day, and more than twice that many are wounded, in incidents of gun suicide, city gun violence, domestic gun violence, mass shootings, and more.