NEW YORK • Oscar winner Julianne Moore launched a gun safety campaign on Tuesday with about 80 Hollywood friends and celebrities that is aimed at ending gun violence in the United States.

Supported by Hollywood names such as Steve Carell, Kim Kardashian, Ellen DeGeneres, Reese Witherspoon, Jennifer Lawrence and Yoko Ono, the campaign calls for guns to be kept out of the hands of criminals, domestic abusers, stalkers and those with mental illness.

It also calls for guns to be stored safely, out of the reach of children.

Moore said the impetus for her campaign came from the 2012 fatal shootings of 20 children and six adults at Connecticut's Sandy Hook elementary school. She told People magazine she tried in vain to keep the news away from her then 12- year-old daughter.

"I was like, 'I've had it.' I said to my husband, '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'," she told the magazine.

REUTERS