National gun control group spending $2 million to elect Florida Democrats, hoping to counter NRA

The gun-control group Everytown for Gun Safety said Monday it’s putting $2 million into statewide Florida elections to help elect Democrats who favor restrictions on guns.

The announcement came the day after Everytown’s founder, former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, finished a three-day series of political stops in South Florida.

Everytown describes itself as the nation’s largest gun violence prevention organization. What it calls gun violence prevention involves gun control — measures that people on the other side of the issue consider infringements on Second Amendment rights.

The announcement about the $2 million specifically mentioned three statewide Democratic candidates: Andrew Gillum for governor, Sean Shaw for attorney general and Nikki Fried for agriculture commissioner and “others in Florida.” The money will go toward direct contributions to candidates and independent spending in mail and digital advertising.

Bloomberg, the billionaire founder of a financial information company who may run for president in 2020, is giving a separate $250,000 to Gillum.

“These candidates are running on platforms that include strengthening gun-safety laws in the Sunshine State, while their opponents are beholden to the gun lobby’s extreme ‘guns everywhere’ agenda,” the group said.

The organization also endorsed U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., for re-election. He’s running against Gov. Rick Scott who can’t seek re-election because of term limits.

Everytown calls the people it supports “gun sense candidates.” Its platform includes universal background checks on all sales, implementing “red flag” laws like Florida’s across the country that allow court orders to remove guns from people who pose a threat to themselves or others, prohibiting bump stocks that allow semi-automatic weapons to operate more like automatic weapons, preventing domestic abusers who aren’t married to their victims from buying guns, prohibiting the sale of high capacity magazines and prohibiting the sale of assault weapons.

“In Florida, this election is about gun safety — not political partisanship,” John Feinblatt, president of Everytown, said in a statement. “The era of the NRA calling the shots is over.”

Everytown said the Democrats are better than their opponents on gun-related issues. Republican gubernatorial candidate Ron DeSantis and Republican Attorney General candidate Ashley Moody have “A” ratings from the National Rifle Association. Republican Agriculture Commissioner candidate Matt Caldwell has an “A+” NRA rating.

Everytown isn’t going all Democratic. It has contributed $200,000 to the leadership political action committee run by state Sen. Bill Galvano, who worked for the school safety and gun regulation law the state passed after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Massacre. Galvano is in line to become the next Florida Senate president if his party stays in control of the chamber.

aman@sunsentinel.com, 954-356-4550 or Twitter @browardpolitics