As Washington’s gun control debate continues to pick up, dozens of celebrities have joined the discussion on the side of gun control advocates. A new public service announcement compiled the voices of Jamie Foxx, Beyonce, Chris Rock, Rashida Jones, Chris Paul, Steve Carrell, Will Ferrell, Cameron Diaz, Aziz Ansari, Selena Gomez and many more to ask the American people to demand a plan for stricter gun control.
The PSA launched on Friday, December 21, as a part of an online initiative called Demand a Plan to End Gun Violence. The video was put together by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, representing over 750 mayors nationwide in support of new gun control laws. On their website demandaplan.org, supporters can receive information on how to contact the president and Congress, utilizing emails and phone calls. Use of the hash tag #demandaplan on Twitter was suggested as well.
“The NRA’s Washington leadership has long been out of step with its members, and never has that been so apparent as this morning,” read a statement from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, co-Chair of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, commenting on the NRA’s Friday morning press conference. “Their press conference was a shameful evasion of the crisis facing our country. Instead of offering solutions to a problem they have helped create, they offered a paranoid, dystopian vision of a more dangerous and violent America where everyone is armed and no place is safe.”
Published on Youtube in the hours after the NRA’s conference, the video from the stars demands a solution, but clearly not of the variety the NRA proposes. National Rifle Association Chief Executive Officer Wayne LaPierre suggested that an armed security guard should be present in every school. “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,” LaPierre said during the conference.
