Gun control ad focuses on Pryor
LITTLE ROCK — A gun control group invoked the 2008 shooting death of Arkansas’ Democratic Party chairman Friday when launching a television ad criticizing U. S. Sen. Mark Pryor’s vote against expanded background checks for firearms purchases.
Pryor condemned the ad as “disgusting” and accused the group of using the shooting to score political points.
Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group cofounded by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, began airing the 30- second spot statewide Friday and will continue running it over the next two weeks. Angela Bradford- Barnes, the party’s former chief financial officer, doesn’t specifically name the late Bill Gwatney in the 30- second spot but referred to his death in a statement issued by the group.
“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,” Bradford- Barnes said in the television ad. “That’s why I was so disappointed when Mark Pryor voted against comprehensive background checks. On that vote, he let us down.”
The ad is airing as Pryor is running for re- election as the only Democrat in Washington from Arkansas, a state that has turned increasingly Republican in recent years. Though he doesn’t have an announced opponent, the two- term lawmaker is widely viewed by Republicans as the most vulnerable Senate incumbent.
Gwatney died in August 2008 after he was shot three times by Timothy Dale Johnson, 50, at the state party headquarters in downtown Little Rock. Johnson was later killed by police after a chase. Johnson suffered from anxiety and insomnia, but police closed their investigation without answering why he killed Gwatney.
Pryor said the background checks measure he voted against last month wouldn’t have prevented Gwatney’s death.
“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,” Pryor said. “The fact is it wouldn’t have, which makes Mayor Bloomberg’s ad even more disgusting.”
Though it stopped short of directly condemning the ad, the state Democratic Party criticized any efforts to use Gwatney’s death for political gain.
“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,” Party Spokeswoman Candace Martin said in a statement issued by the party. “We don’t believe it is right for any organization to politicize this tragedy.”
Pryor has said a competing measure he backed would have done more to prevent gun violence by increasing penalties for straw purchases — in which someone legally buys a gun for a criminal or a person barred from owning one — and by requiring states, courts and agencies to report mental health records to the background check system. Both measures failed before the U. S. Senate last month.
The ad is the latest move by the group againt Pryor, one of five Democrats who voted against the expanded background checks measure. Pryor and Sen. Mark Begich of Alaska are the only Democrats who opposed the measure who are seeking re- election next year.
Bloomberg’s group ran ads before the background checks vote, urging him to support the measure. The director of the group earlier this month said it planned to air radio ads and send direct mail pieces — with a focus on African- American voters— criticizing Pryor over the vote.
At the same time, Pryor has also been the subject of ads in recent months by conservative groups such as the Club for Growth hoping to unseat him next year.