I've always been weirdly obsessed with advertising.

I remember watching Saturday morning cartoons,

paying more attention to the commercials

than to the shows,

trying to figure out how they were trying to get inside my head.

Ultimately, that led me to my dream job.

I became a partner at a big New York ad agency.

But then, all of that suddenly changed on February 23, 1997,

when my little brother Matt was shot in the head

in a shooting that happened on the observation deck

of the Empire State Building.

Suddenly, my family was thrown into the middle of a nightmare,

being told that my brother was going to die,

actually being given the opportunity to say goodbye to him,

then several emergency brain surgeries

and now what's amounted, for Matt,

to a lifetime spent courageously recovering from a traumatic brain injury.

He is definitely my hero.

But as much as (Applause) -- yeah, deserves it --

(Applause)

But as much as this tragedy was a nightmare for my family,

I often think about how much worse it could have been;

in fact, how much worse it is for the 90 families every day

who aren't as fortunate,

who lose loved ones -- brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, parents.

They don't all make national headlines.

In fact, most of them don't.

They go largely unnoticed,

in a nation that's kind of come to accept a disgraceful national epidemic

as some kind of new normal.

So I quit my job in advertising

to try and do something about this disgraceful national epidemic,

because I came to realize

that the challenges to preventing gun violence

are actually the same ones that made me love advertising,

which is to try to figure out how to engage people.

Only instead of doing it to sell products,

doing it to save lives.

And that comes down to finding common ground,

where what I want overlaps with what you want.

And you might be surprised to learn, when it comes to gun violence,

just how much common ground there is.

Let's look, for example, at people who love to hunt,

a sport enjoyed by millions across the US.

It's a proud tradition. Families.

In some places,

the first day of hunting season is actually a school holiday.

What do hunters want?

Well, they want to hunt. They love their guns.

They believe deeply

in the Second Amendment right to own those guns.

But that doesn't mean there isn't common ground.

In fact, there's a lot of it,

starting with the basic idea of keeping guns out of dangerous hands.

This isn't about taking certain guns away from all people.

It's about keeping all guns away from certain people,

and it's the people that, it turns out, we all agree shouldn't have guns:

convicted violent criminals, domestic abusers,

the dangerously mentally ill.

We can all appreciate

how Brady background checks have been incredibly effective

in keeping guns out of those dangerous hands.

In 20 years, Brady background checks at federally licensed firearm dealers

have blocked 2.4 million gun sales

to those people that we all agree shouldn't have guns.

(Applause)

And whether you love guns or hate guns, you probably also appreciate

that there shouldn't be thousands of gun sales every day

at guns shows or online

without those Brady background checks,

just like there shouldn't be two lines to get on an airplane --

one with security and one with no security.

And --

(Applause)

And the numbers show the overwhelming agreement among the American public:

90 percent of Americans support expanding Brady background checks

to all gun sales -- including 90 percent of Republicans,

more than 80 percent of gun owners,

more than 70 percent of NRA members.

This is not a controversial idea.

In fact, only six percent of the American public disagrees.

That's about the percentage of the American public

that believes the moon landing was a fake.

(Laughter)

And it's also about the percentage that believes the government

is putting mind-controlling technology in our TV broadcast signals.

That's the extent to which we agree about background checks.

But what about the 300 million guns

already out there in homes across America?

Well first, it's important to realize

that those guns are mostly in the hands and homes

of decent, law-abiding people like you and me,

who want what we all want -- including keeping our families safe.

In fact, that's why more and more people are choosing to own guns.

Ten years ago, 42 percent of the American public

believed -- incorrectly -- that a gun makes your home safer.

Today, that number is 63 percent.

Why?

I kind of hate to say it,

because it gets to the dark underbelly of advertising,

which is if you tell a big enough lie enough times,

eventually that lie becomes the truth.

And that's exactly what's happened here.

The corporate gun lobby has spent billions of dollars

blocking the CDC from doing research into the public health epidemic

of gun violence;

blocking pediatricians from talking to parents

about the dangers of guns in the home;

blocking smart-gun technology and other technology

that would prevent kids from firing parents' guns

and would save lives.

They're desperate to hide the truth,

because they view the truth as a threat to their bottom line.

And every day,

people are dying as a result.

And a lot of those people are children.

Every day in the US,

nine kids are just shot unintentionally.

900 children and teens take their own lives every year.

And here's the thing: they're almost all with a parent's gun.

Even two-thirds of school shootings happen with a gun taken from the home,

including the terrible tragedy

at Sandy Hook.

I meet so many of these parents;

it's the most heartbreaking part of my job.

These are not bad people.

They're just living with the unimaginable consequences of a very bad decision,

made based on very bad information

that was put into their minds by very bad people,

who know good and well the misery that they're causing,

but just don't care.

And the result is a nightmare --

not only for families like mine,

but for, really, at the end of the day, all of us.

But I'm not here to talk about the nightmare of gun violence.

I'm here to talk about our dream, and it's a dream we all share,

which is the dream of a better, safer, future.

For my organization, for the Brady Campaign,

that dream is reflected in the bold goal

to cut the number of gun deaths in the US in half by 2025.

And I hope to leave all of you here tonight

with a strong sense of exactly why that dream is so absolutely within reach.

Because folks,

for every great movement around the world,

there's a moment where you can look back and say,

"That's when things really started to change."

And I'm here to say

that for the movement to end gun violence in America,

that moment is here.

(Applause)

We are so clearly at a tipping point,

because the American public has come together by the millions

like never before, based on that common ground,

to say, "Enough."

Enough of the mass shootings in malls and movie theaters

and churches and schools.

Enough of the daily terror of gun violence in homes and streets

that's claimed the lives of women and young black men

in staggering proportions.

Enough of easy access to guns

by the people that we all agree shouldn't have them.

And enough of a small group of craven politicians

putting the interests of the corporate gun lobby

ahead of the people they have been elected to represent.

Enough.

(Applause)

And the really exciting thing is, it's not just the usual suspects like me

that are saying it anymore.

It's so much bigger than that.

And if you want proof,

let's start where most conversations in the US seem to start --

with Kim Kardashian.

(Laughter)