A major gun control group has endorsed Hillary Clinton, offering a lift to her campaign in a tighter-than-expected primary race in California and as she tries to pivot to a general election matchup with Donald J. Trump.

The group, Everytown for Gun Safety, announced its endorsement through a statement released early on Friday, the day after its National Gun Violence Awareness Day campaign.

“Gun Sense Voters have a champion in Hillary Clinton,” John Feinblatt, the president of Everytown for Gun Safety, said in the statement. “Our litmus test is simple: does a candidate side with the public or with the gun lobby? Hillary Clinton passes that test with flying colors — pushing back against the N.R.A.’s extreme ‘guns for everyone, everywhere’ agenda, and ushering in a new political calculus that saving lives from gun violence is a winning issue.”

The group said it had waited to fully evaluate the candidates and to learn its members’ preferences before making an endorsement, which comes months after three other gun control groups issued a statement calling Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Mrs. Clinton’s Democratic rival, the wrong candidate on gun control.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/04/us/politics/hillary-clinton-gun-control.html