Buried in the text of a story in Wednesday’s New York Times about gun control is an interesting revelation about just how determined the gun prohibition lobby is to chip away at traditional Second Amendment rights, spending millions of dollars to ratchet down on gun owners.
Much of it is coming from the deep pockets of anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg, via his “Everytown for Gun Safety” group. They are involved in, according to the newspaper, Hillary Clinton’s campaign, state ballot initiatives and individual races in 20 states.
Everytown learned from the Initiative 594 campaign in Washington two years ago. Donations to anti-gun politicians in Oregon that year helped strengthen the gun control lobby’s influence in Salem.
To be fair, the Times also noted that the National Rifle Association “has spent more than $20 million on advertisements backing Donald J. Trump, who has voiced his strong support for gun rights, while urging gun right supporters to rise up against his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.”
Until Bloomberg opened his checkbook, the widely-held belief was that the “gun lobby” spent the biggest money in the battle over the right to keep and bear arms.
The difference that nobody seems to flesh out is that the “gun lobby” raises its millions of dollars from many sources including millions of individual members and non-members, plus state and local organizations.
Bloomberg’s money comes out of Bloomberg’s pocket.
Granted, local gun control lobbying organizations raise money from individuals. The Seattle-based “Alliance for Gun Responsibility” gets a bunch of money from wealthy elitists, and smaller donations from anti-gun activists. Indeed, their constant barrage of e-mails to likely contributors for more money show up in e-mail inboxes a couple of times a week.
The Sentinel and Enterprise in Fitchburg, Massachusetts ran a story today that asked important questions:
Do Americans have the right to have AR-style firearms, the long guns with a military look used in the past year in several mass shootings?
Should they be able to buy magazines that hold 10 or more bullets?
Can those on a terrorist watchlist, but not charged with a crime, be allowed to buy a gun?
Should every gun buyer have to pass a background check?
People who answer “yes” to the first three questions and “no” to the last one have been relegated to Clinton’s “basket of deplorables.” People who take the opposite position on all four questions are the folks she wants to cast ballots.
On which side do you stand?
