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Dueling Gun Control Billboards Square Off Near LA City Hall

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — A old-fashioned gun fight is coming to town — but this one will use billboards instead of bullets for ammo.

The Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms (CCRKBA) will park its mobile billboard truck at the heart of downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday near City Hall to counter what they say is a campaign of fear against gun owners in California.

The move comes as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg joins efforts with the group Mayors Against Illegal Guns to send its own billboard around the U.S. alleging that nearly three dozen Americans are "murdered with guns every day".

CCRKBA Chairman Alan M. Gottlieb said Bloomberg's campaign "tells less than half of a story".

"We're telling people what Bloomberg isn't telling them. Guns save between 800,000 and 2.5 million lives annually," Gottlieb added. "That's 2,100 to 6,800 people every day who successfully use firearms to defend themselves, or prevent a criminal attack. In the majority of those incidents, no shots are fired, and nobody is injured or killed. In some cases where shots are fired by armed citizens, several lives are saved."

CCRKBA has teamed up with Gene Hoffman from the CalGuns Foundation, along with the Second Amendment Foundation, which is producing educational materials on firearms rights, the number of lives saved and the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

Bloomberg joined Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino and over 550 other U.S. mayors from across the political spectrum earlier this month in voicing their support for a White House campaign to federalize background records in order to ensure "criminals, drug abusers, domestic violence offenders, and the seriously mentally ill" aren't allowed to purchase firearms.

"No mayor, regardless how wealthy he is, should dictate to Congress or the people of California the terms of their civil rights," Gottlieb said. "Michael Bloomberg is spreading hysteria about gun rights. We're spreading the truth."

(©2010 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Wire services contributed to this report.)

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