From the New York Times:
September 17, 1999
By ERIC SCHMITT
WASHINGTON -- With Congress locked in a pitched battle over gun control, a leading advocacy group for tighter restrictions will show a new series of television advertisements featuring the talk-show host Rosie O'Donnell and the actress Susan Sarandon.
The group, Handgun Control Inc., will broadcast 30-second advertisements in a two-week campaign beginning on Friday in the Washington area, and in nine swing Congressional districts on Tuesday, urging viewers to call legislators and demand tougher laws.
The first week of advertisements will cost $100,000, said Naomi Paiss, a spokeswoman for the group.
The campaign was scheduled several days before the fatal shootings on Wednesday at a Fort Worth church, Ms. Paiss said.
A string of similar multiple shootings, including one at a Colorado high school last spring, has galvanized the gun debate on Capitol Hill.
The timing of the new advertisements is meant to coincide with a final legislative showdown on gun control this year.
House and Senate negotiators are trying to hammer out new legislation, but lobbyists on both sides see little room for agreement on the pivotal issue of stricter regulations of gun shows.
Handgun Control has run radio spots during the Senate and House debates on gun bills earlier this year, but the organization decided to make one last push with television.
"We need to reach as many people as quickly as possible," Ms. Paiss said, explaining the group's first television advertisement campaign in three years.
Besides Washington, the advertisements will be broadcast in Charlotte, N.C.; Kansas City, Mo.; Louisville, Ky.; Marietta, Ga.; Orlando, Fla.; Peoria, Ill.; Rochester, Minn.; Salt Lake City, and Wilmington, N.C.
The advertisement draws on video images from three of the recent multiple shootings: those at the Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles, Westside Elementary School in Jonesboro, Ark., and Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo.
Ms. O'Donnell or Ms. Sarandon intones the list of casualties at each tragedy, before concluding, "Enough is enough. No more excuses."
In addition, Ms. Paiss said the group would broadcast another set of advertisements beginning this fall, and running off and on for several months, that are designed to keep the issue on the public agenda into the Presidential election.
The second campaign will feature voice-overs from celebrities like Whoopi Goldberg, Reba McIntyre, Bette Midler and Mia Farrow.
"Win or lose with the current package on the Hill, gun control is going to be one of the hottest issues in the 2000 campaign," Ms. Paiss said. "It's one of the few areas in which neither side can triangulate."
Even with its new campaign, Handgun Control's advertising pales in comparison to efforts of the National Rifle Association.
James Jay Baker, chief lobbyist for the National Rifle organization, said last month that the group would probably spend at least as much money on lobbying and advertising in the coming months as the $1.5 million it had poured into the gun control debate since early May.
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John H. Josselyn, Legislative Vice President
Associated Gun Clubs of Baltimore, Inc.
P. O. Box 20102
Towson, Maryland 21284-0102
410-296-3947 (phone & fax)