Shooting survivors and families of mass shooting victims have launched a national ad campaign targeting lawmakers for accepting contributions from the National Rifle Association (NRA).
The nonprofit Survivors Empowered Action Fund launched the 30 Billboards Outside Cowardly Incumbents campaign Friday, the 19th anniversary of the mass shooting at Columbine High School.
The campaign, inspired by the film “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri,” placed ads on billboards in lawmakers’ districts highlighting the amount the NRA has donated to those politicians.
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Lonnie Phillips, whose daughter Jessica Ghawi was killed during the 2012 mass shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., and a co-founder of the Survivors Empowered Action Fund, said in a press release that the group was prepared to take on the NRA and that the group was hoping to pressure lawmakers into “sensible gun reform.”
“We have decided that enough is enough. It is time that we hold members of Congress accountable for their inaction in the face of tragedy after tragedy,” Phillips said in a press release.
“These cowardly leaders are in the pocket of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and refuse to pass sensible gun reform legislation that reflects what the vast majority of Americans, including gun owners, desire. We are not afraid of the NRA. We outnumber the NRA and we’re going to be fighting back with our votes.”
The group has put up billboards in 13 districts and plans to put up 17 more.
They plan to keep the billboards up through this fall’s midterm elections and until Congress passes laws like an assault weapons ban and universal background checks for gun sales.
The campaign was launched the same day students walked out of classrooms across the U.S. to protest gun violence.
Calls to pass new gun measures have surged in the weeks after the mass shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school left 17 people dead. However, legislation on gun laws has since stalled in Congress.