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  • OK, so, confession:

  • 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)