Everytown for Gun Safety

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Everytown Tells Who NOT To Vote For

February 24, 2024 by 3 Comments

Everytown for Gun Safety just sent out a press release giving voters a list of politicians not to vote for. Well, actually it was a list of Demanding Moms leaders and Everytown volunteers that they had endorsed.

John Feinblatt, president of Everytown, said, “We’re proud to endorse these Moms Demand Action volunteers and Everytown leaders who already have built a strong track record of fighting hard to keep their neighbors safe (sic) and are now making the leap from advocating for laws to writing them.” He confuses keeping neighbors safe with keeping them disarmed.

The full list of candidates endorsed today and the office they are running for is available below:

  • Arkansas
    • Kate Schaffer, Arkansas State House, District 10
    • Denise Garner, Arkansas State House, District 20
    • Nicole Clowney, Arkansas State House, District 21
    • Denise Ennett, Arkansas State House, District 80
  • California
    • Sam Liccardo, US Representative, CA-16
    • George Whitesides, US Representative, CA-27
    • Marisol Rubio, California State Senate, District 09
    • Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, California State Assembly, District 16
    • Catherine Stefani, California State Assembly, District 19
    • Pilar Schiavo, California State Assembly, District 40
    • Darshana Patel, California State Assembly, District 76
    • Linda Deos, Davis City Council, District 2
    • Jett Black-Maertz, Santa Barbara City Council, District 1
  • Florida
    • Gay Valimont, US Representative, FL-01
  • Georgia
    • Lucy McBath, US Representative, GA-06
  • Illinois
    • Jennifer Gong-Gershowitz, Illinois State House, District 17
    • Marti Deuter, Illinois State House, District 45
    • Jackie Williamson, Illinois State House, District 47
    • Maura Hirschauer, Illinois State House, District 49
    • Nabeela Syed, Illinois State House, District 51
    • Maria Peterson, Illinois State House, District 52
    • Mary Beth Canty, Illinois State House, District 54
    • Tracy Katz Muhl, Illinois State House, District 57
    • Bob Morgan, Illinois State House, District 58
    • Joyce Mason, Illinois State House, District 61
    • Laura Dias, Illinois State House, District 62
    • Heidi Henry, Illinois State House, District 75
    • Anne Stava-Murray, Illinois State House, District 81
    • Valerie Simutis, Local School Council Member Chicago Public Schools
    • Sara Knizhnik, Lake County Board, District 18
    • Jennifer Merritt, Sangamon County Board, District 25
  • Iowa
    • Christina Bohannan, US Representative, IA-01
  • Michigan
    • Emily Busch, US Representative, MI-10
  • Mississippi
    • Shirley Meeks, Sunflower County Election Commissioner, District 5
  • North Carolina
    • Natasha Marcus, Insurance Commissioner
    • Claire Kempner, North Carolina State House, District 09
    • Allison Dahle, North Carolina State House, District 11
    • Maria Cervania, North Carolina State House, District 41
    • Beth Helfrich, North Carolina State House, District 98
  • Ohio
    • Allison Russo, Ohio State House, District 07
    • Crystal Lett, Ohio State House, District 11
    • Jessica Miranda, Ohio State House, District 28
    • Erika White, Ohio State House, District 41
    • Rachael Morocco, Ohio State House, District 60
    • Mark Gooch, Ohio State House, District 77
  • Oregon
    • Maxine Dexter, US Representative, OR-03
  • Texas
    • Rhonda Hart, US Representative, TX-14
    • Suleman Lalani, Texas State House, District 76
    • Denise Wilkerson, Texas State House, District 94
    • Chase West, Texas State House, District 132
  • Virginia
    • Missy Cotter Smasal, US Representative, VA-02

Looking over this list I see the anti-gun mayor of San Jose Sam Liccardo is being pushed. He is the one who wants every gun owner to be required to carry liability insurance.

With regard to North Carolina, State Senator Natasha Marcus is trying to be the Commissioner of Insurance. Her only experience on insurance issues is from serving on a Senate committee. Her campaign website speaks more about her dedication to stuff like clean energy, gun control, and abortion than it does to issues concerning the insurance industry and insurance consumers. I have written about her in the past especially with regard to her historical ignorance about the use of gun control to keep blacks disarmed.

I know looks should not matter but when I look at the official picture of Rep. Allison Dahle (D-Wake), I say WTF! I know she says she worked on Broadway as a stage manager but that picture does reinforce her image as a wild-eyed gun controller. She does want all the usual laws: AWB, magazine bans, universal background checks, etc.

I will have to give Everytown this. They are working hard to get their gun control activists elected at all levels. Their “Demand a Seat” program trains their activists on how to run for office and work on campaigns. Unfortunately, they are often successful. We on the pro-rights side have not done a good job in grooming future candidates. While we do support those who support us when they do run for office, finding good potential candidates is not something we have done that I am aware of. That needs to change!

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Everytown Really Stoops Low

July 14, 2023 by 5 Comments

Everytown wants you to know where gun dealers are in your neighbor. They especially want you (and thieves) to know the home addresses of dealers. They even have an interactive map to assist you in this.

Liberty Doll has done an excellent expose’ of the Everytown efforts in a YouTube video published today.

The only class of those with Federal Firearm Licenses not included are those of us with Curios & Relics Licenses. This is because they say we “are not engaged in sales and thus are not included in the analysis in this report.” How nice of them to not put targets on our backs.

You can read the whole so-called report here.

I would encourage you to share Liberty Doll’s YouTube with your friends. As a reminder, some newspapers in the past have published maps and databases containing the name and address of everyone in a state with a CCW. In places where there is registration of either owners such as Illinois or firearms such as with handguns in New York, what is to say that Everytown won’t publish these names under the heading “do you know your neighbor owns a gun!”.

This effort of Everytown reminds me of the “hate group” (sic) map published by the Southern Poverty Law Center which has led some disturbed individuals to attack these groups. Both should be condemned for what they are: an incitement to violence and theft.

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A New Low Even For The Trace

January 24, 2023 by 2 Comments

The Trace, a supposedly independent and non-partisan newsroom, has hit a new low in its reporting on the Monterrey Park, California murders. Rather than acknowledging the failure of California’s gun laws, the most restrictive in the United States, they seek to cast aspersions upon Dr. John Lott. They say he is a “major factor” in the failure to pass even more restrictive gun laws.

The Trace is trying to imply that the Monterrey Park mass shooting might not have happened but for Dr. Lott and his research. The thought that the Democrats supermajority in the California Assembly and Senate didn’t pass gun control laws due to the influence of John Lott is laughable. What they did do is pass more and more ineffective laws that are only obeyed by law abiding citizens. Perhaps if they had studied the work of Dr. Lott they might have passed laws to allow people in California to actually protect themselves.

That The Trace is attacking Dr. Lott and his research should come as no surprise given that it was founded and funded by Michael Bloomberg. His goal in founding it was to promote his gun control agenda (as if the mainstream media doesn’t already do it). While The Trace aka Trace Media Inc. is officially a separate organization from Everytown for Gun Safety (sic), it should surprise no one that the president of Trace Media and Everytown are one in the same. That’s correct, John Feinblatt, Bloomberg’s right hand man on gun control, is officially the head of both organizations.

The Trace owes Dr. Lott an apology but I certainly doubt that will ever happen.

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Everytown Fundraising Off Trump Announcement

November 17, 2022 by

Unless you were living under a rock, you know the former President Donald Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 presidential election. It is was not unexpected nor were the fundraising appeals based upon his announcement.

However, one fundraising appeal that appeared in my in-box today was somewhat unexpected. It was from Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety (sic).

Yesterday, Donald Trump announced that he is running for president in 2024.

Time and again President Trump has shown himself to be unfit for office. The NRA has long been one of Donald Trump’s top supporters, spending tens of millions to support his presidential bids in 2016 and 2020. As president, he was the NRA’s number one ally, fomenting the gun lobby’s dangerous agenda and emboldening far right extremists.

Donald Trump is a threat to democracy and a threat to gun safety.

No matter who the gun lobby decides to support in 2024, Everytown and Moms Demand Action will always be the counterweight to their far-right extremism. We are a grassroots movement of parents, students, survivors, educators, gun owners, community leaders, and concerned citizens working together to fight for public safety measures that can protect people from gun violence—and we rely on your support to power our work.

In my opinion, this appeal was targeted to the low-information voter and donor. While President Trump had a great relationship with Wayne LaPierre and the NRA, other than his appointments to the Federal judiciary including the Supreme Court, he did not do a lot for gun rights. We never got national carry reciprocity and we never got the hearing protection act. Instead we got President Trump pressuring the DOJ and BATFE to concoct a ban on bump stocks by reclassifying them as machine guns. This was despite the clear intent of Congress and the clear wording of the National Firearms Act and the Gun Control Act of 1968. Thus to say Donald Trump is a threat to “gun safety” (sic) aka gun control is farcical.

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“Camera” Hogg Throws Everytown Under The Bus

April 23, 2022 by 5 Comments

David “Camera” Hogg, the most famous non-victim from the Parkland school shootings, just threw Michael Bloomberg and Everytown for Gun Safety under the bus.

In the tweet below you can read him bemoaning the fact that gun control isn’t happening sooner and suggesting that every politician, Democrat or Republican, needs to be bought off.

I’m not sure what “hmu” means but he is called out on his tweet by someone named Ben Davis. Hogg’s response is to throw Bloomberg, Everytown, and probably Shannon Watts as well under the bus.

While I’m glad that Everytown is ineffective at their astroturfing, it is a bit unseemly to bite the hand that has been feeding you for so long.

Oh, what the heck, bite that hand Mr. Hogg. There is nothing I like better than to see disarray among the gun prohibitionists.

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Discarded Like A Broken Toy

April 6, 2022 by

It must suck to be Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux (D-GA). She was a darling of Everytown and the anti-gun lobby only a mere two years ago. They called her a “Gunsense” candidate and spent $1.2 million to get her elected in a suburban Atlanta district.

Now redistricting has put her in the same district as Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA). McBath is the fair-haired child so-to-speak of Everytown. They created her, they elected her, they own her. You can guess who is going to get the money and support of Everytown and their red-shirted Mommy brigade this election.

Rob Romano has a great tweet showing how Everytown has now discarded Bourdeaux in favor of their own creation.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution notes about Everytown’s support for McBath:

McBath is running in Georgia’s 7th Congressional District against fellow incumbent U.S. Rep. Carolyn Bourdeaux in the May 24 Democratic primary. Everytown’s political arm has supported both women in the past but chose McBath in this head-to-head matchup.

The organization said it is spending in the low seven-figures on direct mail, radio spots and digital ads.

Poor Carolyn should have picked her friends better.

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Smith & Wesson Sues NJ Attorney General

December 16, 2020 by 5 Comments

Smith & Wesson filed suit against New Jersey Attorney General Gurbir Grewal yesterday. The suit is brought in US District Court for the District of New Jersey. It was brought in response to a fishing subpoena issued by Grewal’s office “seeking evidence of consumer fraud related to advertising.”

Smith & Wesson accuses Grewal of trying to suppress free speech.

Following in the abusive footsteps of these repressive regimes, the New Jersey Attorney General has taken a series of actions to suppress Smith & Wesson’s speech, and with the intention of damaging Smith & Wesson both financially and reputationally. The most recent such action is the issuance of an administrative subpoena (the “Subpoena”) on October 13, 2020 that allegedly seeks evidence of consumer fraud relating to advertising – but in reality, it seeks to suppress and punish lawful speech regarding gun ownership in order to advance an anti-Second Amendment agenda that the Attorney General publicly committed to pursue.

The lawsuit goes on to accuse Grewal of conspiring with “anti-Second Amendment Activists” such as Brady, Everytown, and Giffords to use the power of the courts and prosecutors to “name and shame” firearms companies such as Smith & Wesson. It mentions the proxy proposals brought by the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility that would have hamstrung Smith & Wesson.

The complaint then goes on to accuse Grewal of working directly with FACT (Firearms Accountability Counsel Task Force) which is a tool of the “anti-Second Amendment Activists” to circumvent the legislative process:

It is against this backdrop of coordinating with anti-Second Amendment Activists to search for new theories to litigate the firearms industry out of existence, that the Attorney General issued his Subpoena against Smith & Wesson here. To this end, in addition to publicly partnering with anti-Second Amendment Activists, the Attorney General has also hired FACT
counsel, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, LLP as his own counsel specifically to pursue firearms manufacturers, further solidifying the anti-gun agenda as his own.

The Attorney General’s actions surrounding the issuance of the Subpoena and initiating the related investigation are forcing Smith & Wesson to expend substantial financial resources, and are threatening to cause irreparable damage with key stakeholders and necessary business partners, and create reputational harm.

The Attorney General’s campaign to silence, intimidate, and deter Smith & Wesson and other Second Amendment advocates, gun manufacturers, and gun owners from exercising their constitutional rights, his consignment of the State’s prosecutorial authority to nongovernmental partisans, and the targeting of protected, disfavored speech, violate numerous provisions of the U.S. Constitution, including the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, and Fourteenth Amendments.

By circumventing the legislature and the courts and, where possible, invading the board room, the anti-Second Amendment Activists disguise their true motives and avoid exposing their agenda to the robust political debate surrounding firearms in the United States. Their allies then use the issues that they create, to falsely foster with shareholders, business partners and other stakeholders a perception of unmitigated risk. Through these coordinated activities, in which the Attorney General and State of New Jersey now are complicit, the activists have denied and continue to deny Smith & Wesson any meaningful access to the only fora that can stop these illegal actions and protect Smith & Wesson’s rights.

Smith & Wesson lists 11 counts of violations. Among these are violations of the First and Fourteenth Amendment through unlawful viewpoint discrimination, restriction of political speech, and restriction of protected commercial speech. It also alleges violations of the Second and Fourteenth Amendment rights of both the company and its consumers. Finally, it says the company is protected the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act as well as the Dormant Commerce Clause meaning this is a matter for Federal courts and that state officials like Grewal are encroaching in Federal matters.

The lawsuit seeks both injunctive and declaratory relief as well as attorney fees along with anything else the court might deem “just and proper”.

The attorneys representing Smith & Wesson are all partners in the international law firm of DLA Piper. In one of those delicious bits of irony, this is the same firm where Douglas Emhoff, spouse of presumed VP-elect Kamala Harris, is a partner. Indeed, when you open up the list of the firm’s attorneys by “relevance”, he is the first one listed.

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Why Is Everytown Afraid To Mention Gun Control In Their Ads?

September 2, 2020 by 2 Comments

If you are a gun control group running ads against pro-gun incumbents, why would you shy away from mentioning guns? Could it be that you know that gun control is not a winning issue given the massive number of new gun owners?

Mike Blomberg’s Everytown PAC is running negative ads in North Carolina and Iowa against Republican incumbent Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Joni Ernst (R-IA).

Here is an ad that is running in Iowa against Joni Ernst. Nary a word about guns is mentioned.

While they do have one ad running in North Carolina that barely mentions firearms, here is their primary ad against Tillis.

The Free Beacon ran an article written by Stephen Gutowski about this today. One of the people he interviewed for the article is Miles Coleman of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

Miles Coleman, associate editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics, said Everytown’s attempt to appeal to issues beyond the Second Amendment could indicate that the group is not confident in gun control’s appeal in swing states.

“One reason Everytown brings up those other issues may be that the Democratic Senate candidates in Iowa and North Carolina will probably need some Trump voters to win,” Coleman told the Washington Free Beacon. “In both states, there were several Obama-to-Trump counties in rural areas. Hitting Republicans on gun control may not be enough to make them unacceptable to those voters.”

Given that it is obvious that Mike Bloomberg and his organization want to swing control of the US Senate from Republicans to Democrats, it would instructive to look at what the candidates who benefit from these ads think about gun control.

In Iowa, Democrat Theresa Greenfield had this on her website. It must not be an issue that she wants to publicize too much as it was somewhat hidden away. She lumped it under “public safety”.

In the Senate, Theresa will fight for legislation that keeps our kids and our communities safe. Whether it’s working to expand background checks, funding critical gun violence research, keeping guns out of the hands of domestic abusers and other criminals, such as those on the No Fly list, she will bring people together to find commonsense solutions to ensure we address gun violence. 

In North Carolina, Cal Cunningham, who you know won the Bronze Star, no V for Valor for his JAG work in Iraq, is a bit more obvious about it. He also touts that Everytown and Giffords have endorsed him.

Cal believes there are commonsense steps we can take to protect our communities from gun violence while protecting the rights of law-abiding citizens. Cal will work to keep our kids safe and to keep guns out of the hands of domestic abusers, criminals, and terrorists by supporting efforts to expand background checks, ban the sale of high-capacity magazines, pass extreme risk laws, and fund gun violence research on an issue that has become a public health crisis.

To be perfectly blunt, there is nothing moderate about their stances on gun control and that is exactly what Everytown wants to obfuscate in their advertising.

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Everytown Announces Endorsements For Senate

June 11, 2020 by 3 Comments

As Tom Knighton said in reference to the announcement that Everytown endorsed 11 Democrats for the US Senate, they “announced Senate candidates it was buying.” I think he hit the nail on the head.

As with their endorsements for the House of Representatives, they rolled out the announcement to The Hill.

The gun-control advocacy group threw its support behind 11 Democratic Senate candidates including Mark Kelly in Arizona, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, Theresa Greenfield in Iowa, Sara Gideon in Maine, Rep. Ben Ray Luján in New Mexico, Cal Cunningham in North Carolina, Jaime Harrison in South Carolina and MJ Hegar in Texas.

The endorsement of Gideon is particularly notable given the group endorsed incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins (D-Maine) in 2014. 

The group also backed incumbent Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin (Ill.), Gary Peters (Mich.) and Tina Smith (Minn.). 

With the possible exception of Gideon, there are no surprises on this list.

Mark Kelly was a gimme given he is “Mr. Gabby Giffords” and is trying to ride the gun control train into office. Likewise, John Hickenlooper aka Hickenstupid sold his soul to Michael Bloomberg years ago.

Closer to me, Jaime Harrison is the former head of the SC Democrat Party, is a protege of House Majority Whip James Clyburn, and parlayed his work for Clyburn into a job as a lobbyist for the Podesta Group. I have been seeing his ads since early spring as our local TV stations cover the Upstate of South Carolina. If his ads were the only thing you knew about him, you would know he got a scholarship to Yale and that he taught school for a year. He never happens to mention he went to law school or that he worked for many years as a lobbyist.

Moving on to Cal Cunningham here in North Carolina, you saw a ton of ads for him early in the spring. Some so-called veterans PAC was running a lot of ads for him touting that he served in Iraq and was awarded the Bronze Star. You got the impression he was like Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) who, despite being a Harvard Law School grad, served as an infantry officer in Iraq and Afghanistan. If that was your impression, you’d be wrong. Cunningham served as a JAG attorney in the Army Reserve attached to the XVIII Airborne Corps. His Bronze Star was awarded for meritorious service overseeing a number of attorneys and paralegals. In other words, he got it for acting like the managing partner of a law firm – not for leading troops in combat.

While Cunningham served in the State Senate from 2000-2004 representing Davidson County, he now lives in Raleigh though he is still listed as an attorney in his father’s law practice in Lexington. He is also the VP and General Counsel of solid waste company WasteZero. If I had to characterize Cunningham, it would be as the John Edwards of 2020 without the narcissistic attention to hair. Cunningham has also been endorsed by the Cult of Personality known as Giffords.

One final note – Mary Jane “MJ” Hegar of Texas is in a runoff for the nomination. She faces State Sen. Royce West (D-Dallas) in the July 14th runoff. While she leads in money raised and came in first in the primary, West has the backing of most Democrats in the Texas Legislature.