Mayors Against Illegal Guns, backed by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, launched a television ad Friday alluding to the death of former Arkansas Democratic Chairman Bill Gwatney and criticizing Sen. Mark Pryor for opposing criminal background checks for firearms purchased online or at gun shows.
Pryor called the ad “disgusting” and said it politicizes the death of his friend.
The group, which is led by Bloomberg and Boston Mayor Thomas Menino, says it will spend $350,000 to air the commercial over the next two weeks.
The video is in response to Pryor’s vote against legislation sponsored by Sens. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., and Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., that would have expanded background checks on firearm purchases, according to the group. The mayors have also launched a website targeting Pryor that is named TakeAnotherLook-Mark.org.
Sens. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., and Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., have also been the subject of similar commercials in recent weeks, but Pryor is the first Democrat to be targeted by the group.
In the ad that debuted Friday, Angela Bradford-Barnes, the former chief financial officer for the Democratic Party of Arkansas who worked at the office when Gwatney was killed, asks viewers to tell the senator to “take another look at background checks.” She does not use Gwatney’s name in the ad.
“When my dear innocent friend was shot to death, I didn’t blame guns. I blamed a system that makes it so terribly easy for criminals or the dangerous mentally ill to buy guns. That’s why I was so disappointed when Mark Pryor voted against comprehensive background checks. On that vote, he let us down,” Bradford-Barnes says in the video.
Gwatney was shot and killed at the state party headquarters on Aug. 13, 2008. The gunman, who was identified as Timothy Dale Johnson, 50, of Searcy was shot by police in Grant County later that day and died after he was flown to Baptist Health Medical Center in Little Rock.
Johnson did not know Gwatney and no motive was ever established for the killing.
In a Mayors Against Illegal Guns news release, Bradford-Barnes said she was “heartbroken” by Pryor’s opposition to legislation that would require background checks on gun purchasers. She also recalled being at work “the day [Gwatney] was senselessly taken from us.”
“The pain of that experience will always be a part of me,” Bradford-Barnes said.
Friday afternoon, Pryor defended his vote against the Toomey-Manchin bill, saying he voted for separate legislation sponsored by Sens. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, and Ted Cruz, R-Texas, that he said funded mental-health programs and improved the background-check system. That legislation would have expanded the areas where background checks are required.
Currently, federally licensed firearms dealers must run background checks on gun purchasers.
“New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg didn’t know Bill Gwatney. I knew Bill Gwatney. He was my friend and he was killed by someone with severe mental health issues. The Mayor’s bill would have done nothing to prevent his death because it fails to adequately address the real issue and common thread in all of these shootings - mental health,” Pryor said in a statement released by his office.
Pryor also criticized the group alluding to Gwatney’s death in the ad.
“Mayor Bloomberg’s attack ad politicizes the death of my friend by misleading people into thinking that his bill would have prevented Bill Gwatney’s tragic death. The fact is it wouldn’t have, which makes Mayor Bloomberg’s ad even more disgusting,” Pryor said.
In a separate statement Friday afternoon, the state Democratic party also condemned citing Gwatney’s killing in the ad.
“Bill Gwatney was a friend and inspiration to all Democrats. Not a day goes by that we don’t think about his tragic death and miss him. We don’t believe it is right for any organization to politicize this tragedy,” party spokesman Candace Martin said.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 05/25/2013