Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Gun control and the support for it hit something of a zenith in the immediate aftermath of Parkland. However, unlike many times in the past, the furor didn’t die down after a few weeks or months. It looked like gun control was set to become a major battle during the presidential campaigns.
In fact, during the early days of the Democratic primary, it was a significant issue that was heavily debated. It didn’t seem to help some of its biggest proponents such as Beto O’Rourke and Erik Swalwell, but it was a significant issue and candidates were tripping over themselves to describe themselves as anti-gun.
Things, however, have changed. Now, not even gun control groups are pushing gun control in swing states.
Documents obtained by the Washington Free Beacon show Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund, supported in large part by donations from billionaire Michael Bloomberg, is funding ads that assail Republicans on health care rather than gun control. The ads target state-level politicians in Pennsylvania, Iowa, North Carolina, Arizona and Minnesota. The postcard-style ads, copies of which are posted to the back end of the group’s website, have nearly identical wording.
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Everytown has largely avoided Second Amendment issues when trying to woo voters in swing states. The group minimized gun control in attack ads aimed at Republican senators running for reelection in Iowa and North Carolina earlier this month. The decision indicates Everytown has determined issues like health care and energy production are more persuasive to swing-state voters – many of whom may have recently become gun owners – according to J. Miles Coleman, associate editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
Now, this is a big move, but only if it’s capitalized upon by pro-gun forces. If even Everytown and their fellow travelers recognize that gun control is a non-starter in 2020, anti-gun candidates need to be lit up lit the Vegas Strip. Every light needs to be shown on their anti-gun agenda.
While Everytown is trying to shine the light elsewhere, it sure as hell sounds like a damn good time to remind everyone what their agenda actually is and why they’re trying to help and hurt certain candidates.
This is especially true in this day and age with millions of new gun owners, many of whom found out the hard way that a lot of the rhetoric spewed by people like Everytown is so much male bovine excrement. They found out that you can’t buy a gun on the internet, that there actually are background checks, and a host of other things.
Everytown doesn’t want people to focus on that, so they’re trying to focus their attention elsewhere.
We shouldn’t let them. Call out anti-gun candidates for precisely what they are. Point out how anti-gun groups are backing them, but are trying to shift the topic so you won’t realize how anti-gun they are. Call them on it and don’t let them get away with these kinds of shenanigans.
At the end of the day, we can see just how partisan the Second Amendment has become, and it wasn’t the NRA shoveling money places and pushing non-gun issues, but their harshest critics.
Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, and a blogger and lifetime shooter. He lives with his family in Southwest Georgia. He's also the host of Unloaded TV on YouTube.
https://bearingarms.com/tom-k/2020/09/29/their-cause-is-losing/