With the White House and Senate Democrats preparing to make another go on gun control, one pro-Second Amendment group has launched a comprehensive campaign in 20 states to drive gun owners and grassroots activists to engage their elected officials about the issue.
The National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR) launched a massive TV, direct mail, email and social media campaign against gun control in nearly 20 states over the July 4th weekend,” the organization stated on Monday in a press release. “NAGR’s campaign is focused on reminding gun owners and grassroots activists in those states that at least one of their U.S. Senators is being targeted by the anti-gun lobby to vote for gun control before the August recess.”
“Michael Bloomberg and the anti-gun DC gun control lobby are spending tens of millions of dollars to bully U.S. Senators into voting for gun control,” said Dudley Brown, Executive Vice President of NAGR in the release. “Our campaign is designed to counter Bloomberg’s millions by mobilizing our more than 3 million members and supporters to encourage their U.S. Senators to oppose gun control at every opportunity.”
The NAGR pointed to an ad they’re running in Pennsylvania against Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), who co-sponsored the failed measure to expand background checks to gun shows and online firearms sales.
One of NAGR’s TV ads is running statewide in Pennsylvania, targeting Republican Senator Pat Toomey’s efforts to bailout President Barack Obama’s failed push for expanded federal gun control. The ad begins by invoking the IRS scandal and NSA spying and then turns attention to Toomey.
“Toomey is still trying to bailout Obama’s failed gun control agenda and hand Obama and his power-abusing lieutenants even more information about law-abiding gun owners,” said the narrator of the ad. “Pat Toomey insists on herding more gun owners into the federal NICS registration system and letting Washington bureaucrats strip gun rights from veterans and other Americans without trial if they seek mental health counseling to once again blame honest gun owners for the actions of criminals.”
In addition to Pennsylvania, Danielle Thomspon, press secretary of NAGR, said via e-mail that the ad buy will include West Virginia, Arizona, Louisiana, and Alaska. “We are especially hitting Toomey and [West Virginia Sen. Joe] Manchin hard, as they championed Barack Obama’s gun-control legislation, including expanding the federal background checks and herding gun-owners into the NICS system,” wrote Thompson.
Back in April, the Senate rejected both the Manchin-Toomey amendment, which would have expanded background checks to gun shows and online gun sales, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s Assault Weapon Ban amendment.
The National Institute for Justice issued a memo earlier this year explaining that neither expanded background checks or a ban on so-called “assault weapons” would reduce instances of gun violence. Background checks would be ineffective unless there was a national gun registry, which is a non-starter in Congress, and a ban on assault weapons is useless because those types of weapons aren’t often used in crimes. It’s also worth noting that gun-related homicides and violence are down by 49% and 75%, respectively, over the last 20 years..
