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NC House Fast Tracks Gun Bill, Gun Control Group Takes To The Airwaves

Via YouTube

A bill in the North Carolina House sponsored by Republican Jacqueline Schaffer of Mecklenburg County has drawn the attention of one of the most well funded gun control groups in the country. And now the group is running TV ads statewide in an effort to stop the measure.

This is a fight over House Bill 562, an omnibus gun bill which would, among other things, make it easier to buy a handgun. The ad was paid for by Everytown for Gun Safety, which is backed by billionaire and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWc095aGjkw

The ad has a folksy feel continuing as the narrator talks about how local law enforcement doesn’t support the move. It cites the North Carolina Sherriff’s Association which has come out against the bill. Then come two statistics.

87 percent of North Carolinians support background checks. When Missouri repealed their background check system, gun homicides spiked.

The 87 percent number came from polling done by Everytown. And a graphic shows a 25 percent spike in homicides in Missouri. That number is from a Johns Hopkins University study, which was later revised down to show a 14 percent spike.

Data on the cost of this ad campaign was not yet available, but it comes as the North Carolina House has fast tracked the bill. It will be heard by committee at 9:00 a.m. Wednesday and is already slated for debate on the House floor that afternoon (EDITORS NOTE: The bill was again removed from committee late Tuesday evening).

Tom Bullock decided to trade the khaki clad masses and traffic of Washington DC for Charlotte in 2014. Before joining WFAE, Tom spent 15 years working for NPR. Over that time he served as everything from an intern to senior producer of NPR’s Election Unit. Tom also spent five years as the senior producer of NPR’s Foreign Desk where he produced and reported from Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Haiti, Egypt, Libya, Lebanon among others. Tom is looking forward to finally convincing his young daughter, Charlotte, that her new hometown was not, in fact, named after her.