He wants answers from President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney about what they'll do to curb gun violence in America. Barton knows all too well the impact of gun violence. He was wounded in the mass shooting at the Aurora Theater on July 20.
Barton is seen sitting in an empty movie theater as part of a television ad airing nationally, including KUSA.
"This past summer in a movie theater in Colorado I was shot," Barton said in the ad sponsored by Mayors Against Illegal Guns. "But I was lucky. In the next four years, 48,000 Americans won't be so lucky."
Barton says he wants the presidential candidates to offer concrete solutions to the problem.
"We're just disappointed that Governor Romney and President Obama haven't addressed gun violence in a concrete and specific way," Barton said. "We're demanding a plan from both of them in advance of the presidential debate in Denver," says Barton.
Anthony Fabian, the president of the Colorado State Shooting Association, says while the Aurora shootings were tragic, greater gun control wouldn't have stopped it. The alleged shooter James Holmes purchased all of the guns legally.
"Americans don't want gun control," Fabian said. "They don't want any more gun laws. They understand that crime control is the issue, not gun control."
President Obama and Mitt Romney will square off for their first debate in Denver on Wednesday. The debate will focus on domestic issue such as the economy and health care. It remains to be seen if either candidate will bring up the issue of gun control.
"It is in neither candidate's interest. It might be the right thing to do and have a plan, but it is in neither interest during this campaign at this juncture," Norman Provizer said, a political science professor at Metropolitan State University at Denver. "It is a subject in which I think both candidates believe they have more to lose than they have things to gain by getting into it."
Provizer believes the best chance gun violence has of being addressed is if debate moderator, Jim Lehrer, brings it up. Family members of the victims of the Aurora Theater shooting agree. They have sent a letter to Lehrer asking him to make the topic of gun violence in America part of the debate.
(KUSA-TV © 2012 Multimedia Holdings Corporation)