Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg plans to start a new gun control organization he hopes will rival the NRA, he announced Wednesday.

The group will be called Everytown. It's a grassroots group that is "a movement of Americans working together to end gun violence and build safer communities." It says "change has been thwarted by the Washington gun lobby and by leaders who refuse to take common-sense steps that will save lives."

The organization will be launched thanks to a $50 million investment from Bloomberg.

"He's got the money to waste," Larry Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, told the New York Times. "So I guess he's free to do so. But frankly, I think he's going to find out why his side keeps losing."

Bloomberg says he's not trying to get in a money war with the NRA.

"This is not a battle of dollars," Bloomberg said on NBC's Today show. "This is a battle for the hearts and minds of America so that we can protect our children, protect innocent people. If you take a look at the number of people who use illegal guns to commit suicide, a number of people that are killed every year, we're the only civilized country in the world that has this problem. We have to do something."

After deadly shootings in Aurora, Colo., Newton Conn., Fort Hood Texas, and most recently Kansas, Bloomberg hopes his group can successfully lobby for stricter gun laws, something President Obama has not been able to do.

"People will vote for whatever they think is in their own self-interest to get elected and re-elected," Bloomberg said on Today. "We've got to convince them that 80 percent of gun owners, 90 percent of Americans who are favor of simple background checks to make sure criminals, minors and people with psychiatric problems can't buy guns. Common sense. We've got to make them understand that that's what the public wants."

Bloomberg believes his gun control lobbying can work and points to the election of Virginia Gov. Terry McAulfie. McAulfie, the governor in the NRA's home state, is in support of stronger gun control laws and has already used his veto power to disallow unlocked guns in cars.

"This is a battle we're going to win," Bloomberg told Yahoo! News' Katie Couric last month. "This isn't a partisan issue. I know people say, 'Well, one party's in favor, one party's against.' They are individual votes and I will support individual senators and congressmen who vote to make my kids safer and your kids safer."

Bloomberg isn't trying to take this movement as a momentum-gainer for a presidential run. Instead, he wants to focus on this group to make the world a safer place.