Everytown turns to faith leaders, groups in gun safety initiative ahead of elections

Everytown for Gun Safety is partnering with nearly 20 faith leaders and organizations as part of a new initiative to mobilize faith communities to elect “gun sense” candidates in 2020 races. 

The individuals and organizations will participate in an online training and organization summit in 2020 where Everytown will discuss the role of gun safety in the faith community and how to mobilize the community ahead of the 2020 election, the group announced Tuesday. 

Partners will host at least 50 events to mobilize communities of faith with a focus on the battleground states of Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wisconsin. 

“Our hope is that we can help raise the moral standard for peace-making and that our voices will help amplify the voices of our front-line practitioners and those directly impacted by gun violence in this country,” the Rev. Michael McBride,  founder and lead pastor of The Way Church in Berkeley, Calif., who also leads gun violence prevention efforts, said in a statement. 

“Together, we will continue to lift up strategies, tools and evidence-based practices that work to reduce gun violence, all of which need to be scaled up across the country,” he added. 

Earlier this year Everytown pledged to spend at least $60 million in the 2020 election. 

Billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg co-founded Everytown and is the organization’s largest donor.