NRA-ILA | Anti-Gun Industrial Complex Adds Another Group

It seems the anti-gun community lives by the mantra of quantity over quality, as yet another organization has been formed that is designed to promote infringing on the rights of law-abiding gun owners. We’ve noted before that there really is no discernable difference between the various anti-gun entities, and as if to prove our point, five of them collaborated to issue a press release praising the creation of Legislators for Safer Communities (LSC).

Both the press release and the LSC website refer to this new appendage of the anti-gun industrial complex as being “an independent, nonpartisan coalition of state legislators.” The press release claims there are 171 members representing 43 states, while the LSC website gives no mention of the number of actual members, but claims its members are “across all 50 states.”

Although these groups cannot seem to agree on something as simple as how many members there actually are, and whether or not they come from every state, at least they agree on one thing: None of them understand the meaning of the words “independent” or “nonpartisan.”

While a full list of the membership does not seem to be available, the LSC website does include listings of its Co-Chairs and Steering Committee. Every single legislator listed is a Democrat. It seems a little hard to believe an organization is “independent” or “nonpartisan” when every single known member—and especially those members who we presume are responsible for setting the policies of the group—all come from the same political party.

Besides the decidedly partisan makeup of this “nonpartisan” organization, one wonders why, exactly, this organization was necessary. The website claims the organization will “strive to create safer communities.” Are they saying the other anti-gun groups are not doing this? The website claims the group will “serve as a hub for legislative resources, professional messaging, strategy, research, and peer networking. Again, are the other groups not offering this, or not doing it well?

We found the press release posted to anti-gun billionaire Mike Bloomberg’s organization, Everytown. That group has an entire section dedicated to “Research & Policy,” and the organization regularly coordinates with legislators on pushing anti-gun legislation. Perhaps this group of anti-gun legislators found Everytown’s efforts and resources lacking.

Giffords, one of the other anti-gun groups mentioned in the press release as praising the formation of LSC, has a Resources section on its website that it claims helps to “arm…legislators…with the facts about our country’s gun violence epidemic and the most effective ways to address it.” Not, apparently, to the liking of LSC.

Brady, one of the oldest of the anti-gun groups, also has a Resources section of its website, where it offers “Research,” “Statistics,” and a section called “Campaigns & Toolkits,” where one can allegedly find material to help “spark change in your community.” But maybe Brady’s “change in your community” does not incorporate LSC’s desire to “create safer communities.”

Besides the implication that the existing anti-gun organizations are failing in their ability to provide the resources needed to promote anti-gun legislation for this new group, the other apparent need for the formation of the organization was that, since anti-gun laws were not being promoted effectively enough through Congress, this group of state legislators was needed to promote attacks on the Second Amendment at the state level.

Yet again, it seems the founders of the group felt the existing anti-gun organizations were not capable of doing what they can; promote gun control at the state level.

Ultimately, the new group is not much of a change from the old groups and doesn’t seem to offer much in the way of any sort of new approach to attacking our right to keep and bear arms. The current number of members amounts to a handful of legislators; an average of fewer than four per state, or a small fraction of 1% of all state legislators in America.

While it is possible the group will grow, its actual impact will likely not. It will have no impact on federal legislation, since that is outside its purview, and state legislative battles will simply continue as they have in the past. States with anti-gun monopolies in power—like California, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York—will be able to more easily advance the anti-gun agenda, while states with a history of defending the Second Amendment—like Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Montana, and Texas (along with several others)—will continue to make life difficult for anti-gun zealots.

A whole bunch of states in between will see constant back-and-forth battles, as they have for years, but it is unlikely this new group will add much to those battles. It is merely another drop in the bucket of anti-gun extremist organizations. Nonetheless, we will keep monitoring it, as we have all the others.