The billionaire-backed Everytown for Gun Safety lobbying group—which was co-founded and bankrolled by former presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg—has sent an email blast to presumed supporters, asking for donations to help elect gun grabbers in 2020.
Liberty Park Press obtained a copy of the email.
“Your state could be pivotal for electing Gun Sense Candidates up and down the ballot in November,” says the message from Matt McTighe with the Everytown Victory Fund.
The email blast comes a few days after Everytown endorsed Democrat front-runner Joe Biden, whose obscenity-laced argument with a Detroit auto worker has warped across social media. The man, identified as Jerry Wayne, asserted the former vice president’s agenda would erode the Second Amendment. In reaction, Biden can be heard telling Wayne, “You’re full of s—t” and subsequently saying the bearded younger man was acting “like a horse’s ass.”
Bloomberg left the race several days ago and immediately endorsed Biden. Now Everytown wants financial support to help put Biden in the Oval Office.
Earlier this year the Everytown Victory Fund pledged to spend $60 million to elect what it calls “Gun Sense Candidates” this fall.
“Four years ago,” Everytown’s McTighe recalls, “the NRA spent $30 million to elect Donald Trump. This year we’re going to beat the gun lobby.”
The anti-gun lobbying group calls this “our largest and most ambitious electoral effort ever.”
The message came about the same time another billionaire-backed gun prohibition lobbying group—the Seattle-based Alliance for Gun Responsibility—announced it has changed its annual fund raising luncheon from March 30 to Monday, June 1. It will be held at Seattle’s Weston Hotel, featuring Democrat Gov. Jay Inslee and the parents of a victim in the 2018 Parkland, Fla., high school shooting. The theme of this year’s luncheon is “A Tale of Two Washingtons.”
“Our luncheon is our signature fundraising event and provides the critical funding we need to be effective in Olympia during the legislative session and throughout Washington year-round,” the Alliance says in an email notification.
Meanwhile, a group calling itself the “National Democratic Training Committee” has been busy flooding the email with funding appeals disguised as opinion polls.
These are all messages from which beleaguered gun owners in Washington and Oregon could learn. Money is the lifeblood of politics, according to the adage, and there are two things Pacific Northwest gun owners have never been really good at: voting and raising money. However, having been under constant attack since 2014, when wealthy anti-gunners weaponized their wealth, that has slowly started to change.
Washington this year has seen the rise of activist groups, the Washington 2020 Legislative Action Group and Gun Rights Coalition. While some people like to think activism will win on its own merits, money is necessary to buy materials, from printing copies of initiative petitions to creating yard signs and supporting Second Amendment candidates. The logic is simple: People who can afford to buy guns and ammunition—and post proof of same on social media—can afford to donate to rights groups, or individual candidates’ campaigns.
Money also supports legal actions. The Oregon Firearms Federation just filed suit challenging the ballot titles on Initiative Petitions 61 and 62. In Washington, the federal lawsuit against Initiative 1639 provisions is still in progress, supported by the Second Amendment Foundation and National Rifle Association.
