Fredreka Schouten

USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — Fresh off a string of election victories, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg's gun-control group is gearing up for a "significant" legislative push in more than a dozen states to curb gun violence, its leaders say.

First up: Nevada, where election officials could certify this week that the group and its allies have collected enough signatures for a 2016 ballot initiative that would impose stricter background checks on people buying firearms from private sellers and at gun shows. Bloomberg's Everytown for Gun Safety also is weighing similar background-check initiatives in Arizona and Maine.

It also plans to back legislation in several states that would either expand background checks for gun purchasers, remove guns from the hands of domestic abusers or give family members the power to seek court orders to temporarily confiscate firearms from people they fear may commit gun violence — modeled on a "gun-violence restraining order" law signed by California Gov. Jerry Brown earlier this fall following a shooting rampage in Santa Barbara.

The California law, the first of its kind, is one of a slew of little-noticed victories gun-control groups have scored at the state level — even as Congress has rebuffed expanding background checks on all commercial sales of guns or restrictions on high-capacity magazines.

Six states have enacted measures that make it harder for people convicted of domestic violence to have firearms. In Colorado last month, two legislative seats lost in the state's historic 2013 recall election over the state's stricter gun-control laws moved back to Democratic control. One of the victors, Michael Merrifield, once worked for a Bloomberg gun-control group.

On Thursday, meanwhile, a voter initiative that expanded background checks in Washington state will take effect — joining six other states and the District of Columbia that require background checks on all firearm sales, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

The successes come as the second anniversary of the Dec. 14, 2012, mass shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school approaches. The massacre left 20 schoolchildren and six educators dead and sparked a national debate about gun laws.

"This is a huge amount of movement in two years on an issue where Republicans and Democrats ran for the hills for more than a decade," said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. "We're going to build on the successes of 2014 and do more."

The group still is identifying the states in which it will be active, but could end up participating in legislative fights in as many as 20 states, officials say.

In all, Everytown spent $12.1 million on the 2014 election battles, including the Washington ballot initiative and legislative contests in states such as Colorado and Oregon, said spokeswoman Erika Soto Lamb. It's part of a $50 million election-year commitment Bloomberg made to gun-violence prevention.

Americans for Responsible Solutions PAC, a gun-control super PAC started by former Arizona congresswoman Gabby Giffords, spent $10.5 million on politics this year. Pia Carusone, a senior adviser to the group, said ballot initiatives are a "promising" way for gun-control proponents to take their case directly to voters.

"They have come up with a strategy that seems to be working so far," said Robert Spitzer, a political scientist at State University of New York-Cortland and an expert on gun politics. "For the first time in gun-politics history, the NRA is being outspent by the pro-gun control forces."

Bloomberg's group has suffered setbacks. While gun-control governors in Colorado and Connecticut prevailed at the ballot box last month, another Everytown-backed gubernatorial candidate, Maryland Democrat Anthony Brown, lost. It also backed unsuccessful Democrats in U.S. Senate races, including Sens. Mark Udall in Colorado and Kay Hagan in North Carolina.

The Nevada ballot initiative push comes after the state's Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval, vetoed another background-check measure backed by Bloomberg in 2013.

The National Rifle Association has pledged to fight Bloomberg at the state level and has sought to portray the billionaire as a rich carpetbagger seeking to impose his will in wide swaths of the country.

"Their approach is to go into states where it's easy to pass something and claim national momentum," NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said of Bloomberg's group.

"We have $38 billion reasons to take Mike Bloomberg seriously," he added, referring to estimates to Bloomberg's net worth. "His money has exponential reach."

In a sign of its organizing strength, a Bloomberg-aligned group said it has collected a record 247,000 signatures for the Nevada ballot initiative — more than double the number necessary to qualify for the 2016 ballot.

Clerks in each of the state's 17 counties have until Thursday to sample petitions and report any problems with the signatures, and the state could certify the petitions as early as Friday, said Catherine Lu, a spokeswoman with the Nevada secretary of State's office.

A gun-rights group in the state, Nevadans for State Gun Rights, is trying to challenge the petitions, arguing that initiative proponents missed the deadline to deliver signatures in one county. The group's president Don Turner said he doesn't have the resources to mount a full challenge to all the signatures nor has he received the NRA's help in trying to kill off the Bloomberg effort in its early stages.

"There's an old saying that, 'If you want to be a big dog, you've got to get off the porch,' " Turner said. "Right now, they are just watching," he said of NRA officials.

Arulanandam declined to discuss the NRA's strategy to counter Bloomberg in specific states.

NRA officials "may be doing a bit of political triage in terms of how and where they allocate their resources," Spitzer said. "I have a feeling the NRA thinks they could be bled dry if they try to match Bloomberg's spending."

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