Beware Wolves In Sheep’s Camo
Not everyone “trying to help” is legit!
A few months ago, the publication ProPublica reported how a “group representing firearms owners” had “asked three federal agencies to investigate how the gun industry’s main lobbying group secretly used the intimate details of weapons buyers for political purposes.”
Old News
It was a “rehash of a rehash,” according to a pal in the firearms industry and it was all about discrediting the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) for conducting voter outreach back in 2016. At the core of the controversy was the contention NSSF obtained names of gun owners from various gun companies’ warranty cards to encourage those gun owners to vote for pro-rights candidates.
This “gun owner group” was identified by ProPublica as “Gun Owners for Safety.” A quick check revealed the name of the group is actually “GIFFORDS Gun Owners for Safety.” GIFFORDS is a leading national gun control organization, and this firearms group actually represents the gun control movement. The proof was a click on the group’s name, which promptly took readers to the GIFFORDS website.
To be fair, buried several paragraphs into the ProPublica story was this acknowledgement: “Gun Owners for Safety has been operated since 2019 by the gun violence prevention organization Giffords, which was co-founded by Gabby Giffords, the Arizona lawmaker who survived an attempted assassination in 2011. It … consists of gun owners and Second Amendment supporters who believe in what they call “common sense” measures to reduce gun-related deaths.”
This is hardly the first time, nor will it be the last, that a group disguising itself as a pro-gun organization is actually trying to pull gun owners away from defending their rights. They might even provide cover for a politician by staging some sort of hunting experience. Anybody remember the infamous John Kerry goose hunt back in 2004?
Long story short — To these people, gullible gun owners are nothing more than useful idiots, and as soon as the election is over and their candidate is in office, your interests will be flushed into the sewer of false promises faster than Jerry Miculek can empty a revolver.
Remember back in the early 2000s when we saw an organization calling itself the American Hunting and Shooting Association? AHSA was created in 2006 ostensibly as something of a competitor to the National Rifle Association, asserting NRA didn’t really represent hunters or their interests. The founding president was Ray Schoenke, a former pro-football player and Democrat candidate for governor in Maryland. The AHSA board included one guy who had been an official with the ATF and opposed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act. Another board member was the founder of “Stop Handgun Violence” up in Massachusetts. AHSA pretty much vanished by 2010 because it apparently didn’t get enough traction.
Name Game
Over the years, we’ve seen groups calling themselves “Sportsmen for” whatever candidate needed to sell himself/herself as a friend of gun owners. Or perhaps it was “Gun Owners for” so-and-so, and the common bonds between all of these pseudo organizations include: 1) Low membership which may include limousine liberals and country club conservatives; 2) A platform which supports waiting periods, background checks and bans on certain “non-sporting/military style” firearms; and 3) a pitch to the rubes which includes promoting “safe storage” and other gun control gimmicks, passed off as “common sense.”
These people may talk the talk — albeit at various levels of credibility — but they don’t really walk the walk. The only camouflage they wear is to cover their fealty to a restrictive gun control agenda disguised as “gun safety” or “gun responsibility.” Instead of admitting they’re pushing gun control, they talk about “gun reform.” When someone is that deliberately deceptive, they cannot be trusted to do anything but stab you in the back.
I’ve debated people who peddle their gun control message by first stating, “I’m a gun owner” and/or “I support the Second Amendment.” You can trip these people up by simply asking, “How many guns do you own? What are they, rifles, pistols, shotguns? What caliber/gauge? When’s the last time those guns were fired?” Ask how they did last fall, and if they …
The “gun safety advocate” is equally easy to derail by challenging him/her to recite the four rules of gun safety. Better yet, ask them where they teach gun safety classes so you can attend. I’ve done this more than once, and the typical reaction is a confused, blank stare. It’s even more fun to tell an audience you’re a certified firearms instructor and therefore you’re really the only person in the room who can actually prove you’re a “gun safety advocate.”
Another common thread among such groups is they typically haven’t been around very long, often created just in time to split an upcoming election vote by offering confusing information and demonizing such long-standing organizations as the NRA, Gun Owners of America, Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms as “extremists.”
The Real Deal
There are only a handful of genuine national “gun safety” organizations, and they’ve been around for decades, if not generations. They promote actual safety, not gun control or bans. They encourage training and education, so long as it is voluntary. They do not encourage voting for liberals.
So, why do liberals/Democrats think they need to do this? The answer is simple. If they honestly explained their true intentions, no gun owner with functional gray matter would ever vote for a single one of them — and they know it.
It is dishonest, and if a candidate feels they must use such deception in order to gain votes, what else are they lying about?
Far too many casual gun owners — who are often stunned they have to comply with the same gun control laws to which they previously acquiesced because the restrictions seemed so “reasonable” — have forgotten an important rule: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Don’t be a fool, and don’t let your friends be fooled, either.
It is not just your goofy neighbor’s AR15 or GLOCK 19 they’re after, it’s your Browning Auto 5 and the Colt Woodsman you inherited from grandpa. They’re just eroding your rights one class of firearms at a time, and if they don’t ban yours now, they will get around to it. Gun prohibitionists play the long game.
Beware of the people behind creation of such organizations, and never, ever trust the oh-so-sensible front men and women they send to sing their siren’s song in your ear. In the end, they will be revealed as wolves wearing sheep camo, and your rights are on their menu.
