Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun-control group founded by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, is officially making the National Rifle Association its target.
The group began surveying House and Senate candidates nationwide Monday on gun control issues, in an effort to counter the NRA’s sway in the 2014 midterm elections.
Everytown’s new survey will require that candidates and incumbents take a public stand on gun-control issues. Based on legislators’ answers, the group will then either back or oppose candidates in the midterm elections.
The NRA already assigns letter grades to candidates based on their support of gun rights, as a way of swaying voters. Everytown hopes its new initiative will be a counterweight to the NRA’s A through F grading system, Fox News reports.
“People deserve in this country to know where candidates stand on reasonable gun measures,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown. “For too long, the gun lobbyists had the field to themselves.”
Everytown is born out of a merger between two gun control groups, Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense. The latter group scored a major coup last week after Target, responding to pressure from the group, publicly asked customers to keep firearms out of its stores.
Everytown currently has close to 2 million members and hopes that techniques borrowed from Obama’s 2008 and 2012 campaign will facilitate the group’s expansion. Bloomberg also pledged $50 million of his own personal funds to finance the group’s initiatives this year, cementing his status as one of the country’s most vocal gun-control advocates.
In response to these efforts, NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam simply described Bloomberg in The Washington Post as “the latest incarnation of a long line of anti-freedom billionaires who’ve tried to take on the National Rifle Association.”
