The gun prohibition lobby is working overtime not only to promote a nationwide March 24 gun control event called the “March For Our Lives,” but in making money by selling paraphernalia including $30 T-Shirts, 12 signs and decals and bumper stickers for $5 apiece.
You can find those items, and a lot more, for sale at the Everytown for Gun Safety website.
Everytown is the multi-million-dollar lobbying organization bankrolled by anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg. The “March For Our Lives” event, the organization claims, “is created by and led by students across the country who are demanding that their lives and safety become a priority. They’re fighting for commonsense gun safety measures, and Americans nationwide are showing their support.”
On Tuesday, the Seattle-based Alliance for Gun Responsibility launched another email fund raising blast announcing a last-minute push to pass “meaningful legislation” in Washington State that would raise the age to buy a semi-auto rifle to 21. They’re asking $5 donations, which will be matched 10 times over. The Alliance doesn’t say where the matching money comes from. But it does assert that there is a “gun violence crisis in our state.”
However, a check with the FBI Uniform Crime Report for 2016 – the most recent year for which data is available – shows that there were 197 homicides in Washington that year, of which 127 involved firearms. That’s about one-sixth the number of murders in Chicago that same year, when 762 people were slain.
It was the year in which 11 Evergreen State residents were killed with rifles of any kind, including the three teens gunned down in Mukilteo and five people murdered at the Cascade Mall in Burlington. It was an anomaly for Washington, which typically sees about a half-dozen rifle-related slayings annually.
In 2016, according to the FBI data, 19 people were stabbed to death. Another 38 people were killed with “other weapons,” which could include blunt instruments, rocks, baseball bats and/or hammers. Eleven people, the same number killed with rifles, were beaten or stomped to death.
In the wake of the Florida Valentine’s Day tragedy, some gun control proponents have been demanding to know how much money the National Rifle Association has contributed to certain politicians.
Well, how much money has Everytown contributed to politicians? OpenSecrets.org, operated by the Center for Responsive Politics, has published a list of some of the politicians who have gotten help, or hindrance, from Everytown’s deep pockets. It’s an interesting list.
