When thousands of boisterous revellers pack Times Square on New Year's Eve, they will get a sober reminder of the murder stalking America's streets from a "Deathclock."
At the stroke of midnight, the newest billboard on New York's best-known square will be unveiled, ticking up the number of people killed by guns in the United States.The three-story-high electronic billboard will also count the number of guns in circulation in America, a new anti-gun group announced.
"The name `Deathclock' is not pleasant," billboard sponsor Robert Brennan said. "But neither is the message that it will give out. The number of deaths in America that are caused by guns is an ugly and shocking story."
Brennan, a New Jersey financier whose own brother was shot and killed 25 years ago, said the Times Square billboard would be the first of several similar deathclocks that will be erected shortly in cities including Los Angeles, Miami, Washington and Newark.
"Each killing is an individual tragedy, and the thousands being slaughtered annually, as our billboads will underscore, is a national disgrace," Brennan told reporters.
He said more than 35,000 people were killed by guns last year, more than a third of them homicide victims slain by handguns.
The 35-foot-high, 52-foot-wide sign, is expected to be the largest noncommercial billboard of its type to be mounted in Times Square, the midtown landmark that anchors the Broadway theater district.
Up to several hundred thousand revelers, many of them out-of-town visitors blowing noisemakers, pack the square to bring in the New Year. During the countdown, an illuminated sphere is slowly lowered from a building, touching ground to mark the annual changeover.
Features of the "Deathclock" will include a toll-free telephone number where people can get information and data, including how their legislators voted on gun-control issues.
Brennan, is also the owner of Dehere, a colt favored to win Saturday's $1 million Breeder's Cup Juvenile.
The racehorse is the namesake of the Dehere Gun Fighters of America, the foundation which will fund "Deathclock."
In announcing the formation of the anti-gun group Brennan pledged the lifetime earnings of the colt to the foundation.