The Seattle-based Alliance for Gun Responsibility, the well-financed gun prohibition lobbying group, has thrust itself into Tuesday’s special senate election in Alabama via an email fund-raising effort that declares in its subject line, “They’re trying to buy an election.”
The complaint is about money apparently being spent by the National Rifle Association in the effort to elect Judge Roy Moore to fill the Senate seat left vacant by Jeff Sessions’ appointment as U.S. Attorney General.
It is a textbook example of the proverbial pot calling the kettle “black.” Three years ago, the Alliance raised and spent about $10.4 million to pass Initiative 594 in Washington State against about $2 million raised by opponents who had their own competing measure on the ballot.
Who bought an election in that case?
The Alliance, which should not have had to spend a penny to pass their initiative, having claimed that its issue—so-called “universal background checks” for all firearm transfers —was supported by 80-85% of the public. Yet, on Election Day, their initiative passed by less than 60 percent. But it spent a small fortune against what amounted to token resistance and came in 20 points shy of where it claimed to be.
Now comes the Alliance sticking its nose into an election at the far end of the country, to prevent Republican Roy Moore from being elected to the U.S. Senate, where his presence would strengthen the GOP majority and thus prevent anti-gun Democrats from road-blocking pro-rights legislation. Moore does not appear to be anybody’s first choice, but to protect the majority, Alabamans may hold their noses, or they may use their votes to tell the mainstream press and far left pundits that their attacks on Moore have backfired.
Either way, the Alliance’s fund raising effort “to defeat the NRA and Roy Moore and fight for candidates who stand up for gun safety” is further evidence that the group is determined to have a national presence. With money from wealthy elitists including a handful of Seattle-area billionaires, plus Michael Bloomberg, they are the ones who appear to be buying elections, as they did in Washington.
It should come as no surprise that in Washington State over the past three years, the number of legally-armed citizens with concealed pistol licenses has soared. According to data from the state Department of Licensing, at the end of 2014, the year I-594 passed, there were 478,460 active CPLs in the Evergreen State. As of Dec. 1 this year, the DOL reported 591,366 active CPLs, an increase of 112,906 carry licenses in a state that is viewed as “blue” nationally but that may be deceptive. If Moore wins, his vote just might help pass concealed carry reciprocity in the U.S. Senate, a prospect anti-gunners dread.
In the three years since I-594 passed, there is no indication that it has prevented a single violent crime or kept a single gun out of the wrong hands. The Mukilteo killer who gunned down three teens passed a background check. The Cascade Mall killer who murdered five people in Burlington took a rifle from his stepfather’s home.
The Seattle P-I.com is reporting that the 16-year-old suspected of shooting two students outside a Pierce County high school last week has turned himself in. If he is the actual shooter, it’s a safe bet he did not legally possess the gun that was used.
Complaining that the NRA or anyone else is trying to influence an election is more “sky-is-falling” rhetoric from a loud, well-financed lobbying organization that may or may not care about an election in Alabama so much as it is determined to prevent the Second Amendment from being protected from further erosion.
