Julianne Moore has launched a campaign for gun safety, using her star power to get backing from a host of other celebrities.
The Oscar-winning actress is working with American organisation for gun violence prevention Everytown on the project, which is called Everytown Creative Council. People from the creative arts have joined up to show their support, among them Reese Witherspoon, Steve Carell and Ellen DeGeneres.
"I was going through my address book alphabetically," Julianne told People. "That's all I did. 'Please, are you interested,' and the response has been overwhelming, I'm so, so thrilled. Everybody feels this way about this issue. I feel like with gun safety, there have been many people who feel threatened by saying something but I don't think I'm saying anything that's unreasonable. With all of these rights that we have in our Constitution come a great deal of responsibility, and I think the founding fathers would agree with me."
The actress' turning point came with the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, in December 2014, where 20 children and six adults were killed. That day Julianne was working in New York and her then-12-year-old daughter was with her on set, with the star going to great lengths to keep the news away from Liv because she felt she was too young. Her daughter eventually found out what had happened, which was when Julianne felt a shift.
"I was like, 'I've had it,'" she recalled. "I said to my husband, (director Bart Freundlich), 'I've got to do something. This is the one thing that I need to say something about. This is my responsibility as a parent.'"
The star thinks there should be more rigorous checks before people are able to buy guns in America, explaining that surveys show 92 per cent of people agree with her. She added that when cars were first available there weren't any systems in place, but now things like seatbelts and airbags have made them much safer.
Julianne is calling on people to be more open about the topic of gun safety, to talk about it with their peers and speak to those in power if they want laws to change.
"I know people who own guns who have a gun safe because they have children in their house," she said. "These are responsible people. By talking about it, we can admit it's a problem and we can admit that we want to work together to solve it."
On 1 October 2015 a gunman killed nine people at Umpqua Community College in Oregon, with residents in the town of Roseburg lining the streets to show their support as students returned to class on Monday (12Oct15).
