NRA President Defends Web Video Bloomberg Calls 'Dumb PR'
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork/AP) -- New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said a new National Rifle Association web video that labels President Barack Obama an "elitist hypocrite'' is "dumb PR.''
In an appearance Thursday on "CBS This Morning,'' the mayor said: "You have to be stupid to do that.''
The video's narrator asks why Obama is skeptical of putting armed security in schools when his daughters are protected by armed guards in their own school.
"To do an ad, to bring the president's kids in, is just dumb PR," Bloomberg said.
The White House has called the NRA ad "repugnant and cowardly.''
The NRA has come under close scrutiny in the wake of Newtown, Conn., shootings that killed 20 children and six adults. It blamed violent video games and movies, not guns, for contributing to mass shootings.
"The NRA said the worst thing here is these violent children's games and then two days ago they come out with their own violent children's game," Bloomberg said.
But NRA president David Keene, who also appeared Thursday on "CBS This Morning," defended the ad.
"The ad was not about the president's kids. We also had pictures of a number of other people, including David Gregory, who send their children to schools that have protection and deride the idea that average citizens' children should be protected," Keene said.
He said the organization has no problem with tighter background checks of gun purchasers.
"The real question that needs to be addressed is not what we do about guns, but what we do to make our schools safer,'' Keene said.
Keene said officials should focus more attention on a "devastatingly broken mental health system in this country,'' if they genuinely want to end gun violence.
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