One of the country’s top gun-control groups has fallen far short of its 2020 goal to spend $60 million on the election.
Everytown for Gun Safety, a group founded by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, has only spent $26 million of its $60 million goals, and only has $5 million cash-on-hand, the Washington Free Beacon’s Stephen Gutowski <a href="https://freebeacon.com/2020-election/leading-gun-control-group-abandons-60-million-spending-pledge/">reported</a>. Gutowski viewed Federal Election Commission records from the group, revealing it has spent less than half of its intended goal with just a few weeks to go before the election.
“The <a href="https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00688655/1458884/">latest filing</a> for Everytown&#8217;s super PAC, which has done nearly all of the group&#8217;s political spending in 2020, shows the group had just over $4.6 million remaining in the bank on Oct. 15. It brought in just over $1 million—with over 85 percent coming from large donors—<a href="https://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/690/202010209325919690/202010209325919690.pdf">in September</a>. However, even if the group repeated its best 2020 performance when it brought in a $7 million donation from former Microsoft CEO and Clippers owner Steve Ballmer in <a href="https://docquery.fec.gov/pdf/195/202007159249869195/202007159249869195.pdf">April</a>, it would still be tens of millions of dollars short of its pledge,” Gutowski reported.
Further, the group isn’t even spending its money on gun-control, instead focusing its advertising on health care or energy issues.
“The downturn in spending coupled with the messaging shift could signal that liberal donors and strategists believe gun control is not a winning 2020 issue—especially with <a href="https://freebeacon.com/issues/new-gun-owners-could-sway-future-elections/">recent record gun sales and a rush of new gun owners across the country</a>,” Gutowski reported.
&#8220;I&#8217;m not surprised,&#8221; Joyce Malcolm, the Patrick Henry professor of constitutional law and the Second Amendment at George Mason University, told the Free Beacon. &#8220;With calls to defund the police and a record-setting 11 million applications for purchase of guns in the first six months of this year (40 percent of which are first-time gun purchasers), Americans are more concerned with their safety and that of their families from violent riots and mayhem than gun control.&#8221;
In January, Shannon Watts, who founded the Everytown subsidiary Moms Demand Action, said the “gun-safety movement has never been stronger or larger—and we&#8217;re going to meet this moment with our most aggressive, well resourced, and grassroots-powered electoral program ever.&#8221;
That same month, Everytown said it planned to spend twice what it spent in 2018 and surpass what the National Rifle Association spent – $50 million – to get President Donald Trump elected in 2016.
So far, the group has failed on both promises.
“Instead, Everytown is being <a href="https://freebeacon.com/2020-election/nras-2020-spending-dwarfs-gun-control-groups/">outspent</a> by the NRA. The <a href="https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00053553/?tab=filings">NRA&#8217;s PAC</a>—which raised two-thirds of its haul from small donors—brought in more cash than Everytown in September. When combined with the NRA&#8217;s <a href="https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00741710/?tab=filings">super PAC</a>, the gun-rights group had a roughly $3 million cash-on-hand advantage over Everytown as of October,” Gutowski reported.
As The Daily Wire previously <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/women-minorities-leading-increase-in-conceal-carry-permits">reported</a>, there are 820,000 more concealed carry permit holders today than there were in 2019, thanks in large part to women and minorities. A report from John Lott’s Crime Prevention Research Center showed that women and minorities were the main driver behind the 34% increase in concealed carry permits over the past four years.

Michael Bloomberg

Prominent Gun-Control Group Falls Far Short Of 2020 Spending Target

2020 Election

Everytown for Gun Safety

Gun Control

Gun control is the narrative pushed by the mainstream media, and it appears some outlets don’t disclose that their writers are also paid by anti-gun groups, including one owned by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
John Lott, Jr. <a href="https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2020/07/22/news_outlets_turn_a_blind_eye_on_the_traces_anti-gun_bent_143767.html">wrote</a> about the issue for RealClearPolitics, explaining that various news outlets have hired people from one Bloomberg-funded gun-control organization known as The Trace.
“NPR, Politico, Time, and Scientific American are unlikely ever to pay an NRA employee to write news articles about gun control. But they have no problem hiring people who work for The Trace, a Michael Bloomberg-funded gun control organization. Even in the very hypothetical case that these publications did use an NRA-influenced article, they would undoubtedly include a disclaimer warning readers of the possible bias,” Lott wrote.
Yet The Trace is given preferential treatment. As Lott pointed out, NPR <a href="https://www.npr.org/2017/10/05/555859571/nra-backed-gun-laws-have-found-success-in-state-legislatures-across-the-u-s">described</a> The Trace as “an independent, nonprofit journalism organization dedicated to covering issues related to guns in America.”
When Lott told a senior writer at Scientific American that its contributing editor, Melinda Wenner Moyer, is also paid by The Trace to write regular articles for the outlet, the editor “insisted that none of his staff had a conflict of interest and that The Trace was a nonprofit newsroom.”
“This past week, Moyer had a piece at The Trace <a href="https://www.thetrace.org/2020/07/coronavirus-gun-sales-increased-shootings-study/">arguing</a> that the increase in gun sales over the last few months is linked to the recent surge in urban shootings. In another, she claimed that guns don’t keep one’s family safer,” Lott argued. “But Moyer fails to mention the standing down and disbandment of police units, or the release of prisoners amid the pandemic. These factors can lead to a surge in crime. She ignores that the causation with gun sales might be going the other way, with people buying guns as they see the breakdown of the legal system and having to rely on themselves for protection. Instead, she blames the <a href="https://www1.nyc.gov/site/nypd/news/pr0706/nypd-citywide-crime-statistics-june-2020">30% increase</a> in murders in New York City or the <a href="https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/chicago-murders-and-shootings-up-overall-crime-down-halfway-through-2020-police-say/2298155/">78% increase</a> in Chicago in June on gun sales that increased the national supply of firearms by only a couple of percentage points.”
Lott searched The Trace’s archives and found zero articles that ever covered guns in a positive light. “Not a single one approvingly discusses research that has found a benefit from gun ownership,” he added.
Further, The Trace never says anything critical of pro-gun-control groups such as Moms Demand, The Brady Campaign or another Bloomberg-funded organization called Everytown. Meanwhile, The Trace unironically “accuses the NRA of supporting the police because of the ‘reliable’ donations that it receives from officers,” Lott wrote.
The Trace focuses a lot on the money behind organizations that support the Second Amendment, yet its own funding hypocrisy is ignored by mainstream media outlets. Those same outlets hire writers from The Trace without noting any conflict of interest.

Mike Bloomberg

Media Outlets Employ Bloomberg Gun-Control Writers, Would Never Do Same For NRA Employees

Media Bias

House Democrats are planning an &#8220;aggressive&#8221; push to greatly expand gun control as soon as they take control of the House of Representatives in January, <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/house-democrats-plan-aggressive-gun-control-effort-next-year">the Washington Examiner reports</a>.
After a shooting at a California bar last week that claimed a dozen lives, Democrats have decided to shift (briefly) away from prioritizing several investigations into the Trump administration and President Donald Trump, and focus instead on passing strict gun control measures, including universal background checks, a national ban on &#8220;high capacity magazines,&#8221; a ban on &#8220;assault-style&#8221; weapons, and a provision that would allow law enforcement to temporarily confiscate weapons from individuals deemed a threat to themselves or others.
Rep. Mike Thompson (D-CA) told The Wall Street Journal last week that he intends to immediately push for the universal background check legislation which would require gun retailers and gun sellers to register all gun purchases through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). The effort would close what Democrats call the &#8220;gun show loophole,&#8221; which they believe allows individuals to purchase guns in private transactions — at gun shows and elsewhere — without registering their firearms with any state or federal body.
It&#8217;s not clear how many more gun sales that system would record, given that most gun shows feature federally licensed retailers who are already required to do background checks through NICS and disclose sales to the federal government. Gun owners and gun rights groups also fear that a universal background check system could lead to a national gun registry.
Newly-elected Democratic Rep. Lucy McBath (GA) is a former spokeswoman for Everytown for Gun Safety, the nation&#8217;s leading gun control advocacy organization, and is likely to join the push for a national gun registry and a national ban on &#8220;assault-style&#8221; firearms, even though Democrats have difficulty explaining what an &#8220;assault&#8221; weapons ban would outlaw.
Last week&#8217;s shooting took place in a state, California, which has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country. The shooter, a former Marine reportedly suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, obtained and used a &#8220;high capacity magazine&#8221; even though such magazines are banned statewide.
The efforts will likely have the support of presumed Speaker of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who pledged last week to tackle gun control within days of gaining control of the House.
&#8220;The American people deserve real action to end the daily epidemic of gun violence that is stealing the lives of our children on campuses, in places of worship and on our streets,&#8221; Pelosi told a press conference last week.
The efforts aren&#8217;t likely to meet with success. President Trump has pronounced himself a fan of the Second Amendment, and despite Democratic control of the House, Republicans still retain a sizable majority in the Senate, and any bill would need to pass both Houses before becoming law.

House Democrats Plan ‘Aggressive’ Gun Control Push As Soon As They Regain Control

Democratic Party

Nancy Pelosi

Levi&#8217;s denim company has pledged more than a million dollars to gun control organizations in an effort to curb the gun violence in the &#8220;very communities where we live and work.&#8221;
The brand best known for its jeans is taking the same gamble as Nike: betting that by getting woke, they&#8217;ll avoid going broke, building up goodwill with social justice-focused consumers who want brands they wear to match up with the ideals they espouse.
Levi Strauss and Company announced the move <a href="http://fortune.com/2018/09/04/levi-strauss-gun-violence-parkland/?utm_source=twitter.com&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;xid=soc_socialflow_twitter_FORTUNE&amp;utm_campaign=fortunemagazine">in Fortune magazine</a> through a letter from its CEO, Chip Bergh, defending the move before Levi&#8217;s even came under scrutiny.
Bergh said the brand “simply cannot stand by silently when it comes to issues that threaten the very fabric of the communities where we live and work.”
“You may wonder why a company that doesn’t manufacture or sell guns is wading into this issue, but for us, it’s simple,” Bergh continued. “Americans shouldn’t have to live in fear of gun violence. It’s an issue that affects all of us — all generations and all walks of life.&#8221;
Bergh claims that his role as CEO of a “values-driven company&#8221; obligates him to speak out on the issue. He also took a swipe at Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who suggested that instead of curbing Second Amendment rights to prevent school violence, local communities should consider &#8220;hardening&#8221; soft targets.
&#8220;We can’t insulate ourselves from every threat,&#8221; Bergh wrote. &#8220;We can’t &#8216;harden&#8217; every place we gather — whether it be our schools, workplaces, shops, churches, or entertainment venues. But we can take common-sense, measurable steps — like criminal background checks on all gun sales — that will save lives.&#8221;
The company will partner with — of course — Everytown for Gun Safety in its efforts, and Bergh will join a coalition called &#8220;Everytown Business Leaders for Gun Safety.&#8221;

Levi’s Jeans Pledges $1 MILLION To Gun Control Groups To ‘End Gun Violence’

Guns

<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2018/08/27/640323347/the-school-shootings-that-werent">A new report from National Public Radio</a> &#8212; not exactly a right-leaning outlet &#8212; claims that the Department of Education and gun control activists have wildly overstated the number of school shootings that took place in 2017.
NPR conducted the study in partnership with Child Trends, which compiles and analyzes data about school-aged children, after realizing that no two outlets were able to provide an exact number of &#8220;school shootings&#8221; and that the number of school shootings varied widely from outlet to outlet.
The Department of Education reports that there were 235 school shootings during the 2015-2016 school year and told NPR that it relied on self-reported statistics from school districts.
But when NPR dug into the reported incidents, it could confirm just 11 school shootings. More than two thirds of the claimed school shootings &#8220;never happened&#8221; they said. In 161 of the reported incidents, school officials weren&#8217;t aware anything had happened. In four of the incidents, &#8220;something did happen, but it didn&#8217;t meet the government&#8217;s parameters for a shooting.&#8221;
The &#8220;235&#8221; number is cited often in regards to school shootings, but even major gun control advocacy organizations like Everytown for Gun Safety couldn&#8217;t confirm the government&#8217;s data. They found just 29 school shootings. The ACLU, which also conducted its own research, found &#8220;fewer than a dozen.&#8221;
The discrepancy harkens back to an earlier statistical error that blanketed social media in the days and weeks after the Parkland school shooting: that in the United States one school shooting happens, on average, <a href="https://www.politico.com/newsletters/playbook/2018/02/15/school-shootings-2018-average-248207">every 2.5 days</a>. A similar problem occurred after Santa Fe, when news outlets reported there had been &#8220;18 school shootings&#8221; from January through May of 2018.
The problem, NPR suggests, is that different statistical bodies define a &#8220;shooting&#8221; differently. The &#8220;2.5&#8221; number that surfaced after Parkland included any gun-related incident that occurred anywhere near a school, even if that incident was after school hours and did not involve a student. The &#8220;18&#8221; number defined non-mass shootings as &#8220;school shootings&#8221; in a similar way, mixing in gang violence.
The DOE&#8217;s numbers include mistakes made by school districts (one district reported 37 shootings when it meant to report 37 incidents of students possessing a knife, gun, or other weapon), and a number of incidents that are obviously not school shootings, including &#8220;a report of a toy cap gun fired on a school bus&#8221; and a student who &#8220;took a picture of himself at home holding a gun and posted it to social media.&#8221;
NPR suggests that the federal government needs to either improve its data collection policies or streamline reporting requirements for school districts to get better numbers.

NPR: DOE, Gun Activists Wildly Overstated The Number Of School Shootings

Education

Parkland Shooting

Shooting

In a virtue signaling stunt on Saturday, a former porn star decided to give up her shotgun after the recent school shooting in Texas, indicating that while she supports the Second Amendment she was sick and tired of the recent acts of violence that have dominated national headlines.
In a series of tweets, Mia Khalifa claimed that she was &#8220;not against the 2nd amendment,&#8221; but was against the deaths of children which led her to give up her shotgun, which she stored on the wall of her living room.
Khalifa tweeted: &#8220;They couldn&#8217;t have made it easier. Thank you, @Austin_Police for picking up my weapon for safe destruction. This may not effect anyone but, but it&#8217;s symbolic. If all of us were to #DoSomething small, eventually it will add up and change the world.&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en">
They couldn&#8217;t have made it easier. Thank you, <a href="https://twitter.com/Austin_Police?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Austin_Police</a> for picking up my weapon for safe destruction. This may not effect anyone but, but it&#8217;s symbolic. If all of us were to <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DoSomething?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#DoSomething</a> small, eventually it will add up and change the world. <a href="https://t.co/sgnT70aigE">pic.twitter.com/sgnT70aigE</a>
&#8212; Mia K. (@miakhalifa) <a href="https://twitter.com/miakhalifa/status/997869549449043968?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 19, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
Khalifa said that she was then donating the value of the firearm to the far-left group Everytown for Gun Safety:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en">
I will be donating the gun&#8217;s value ($1,500) to the <a href="https://twitter.com/Everytown?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Everytown</a> organization. Having it doesn&#8217;t make me feel safer, but relinquishing it does make me feel like I&#8217;m setting an example. Every small action matters. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/DoSomething?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#DoSomething</a>
&#8212; Mia K. (@miakhalifa) <a href="https://twitter.com/miakhalifa/status/997861267099537409?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 19, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
A man identified on Khalifa&#8217;s social media accounts as her manager, Jeff Solomon&#8207;, says that she did the right thing because no one was more irresponsible than her:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
If you&#8217;re mad at <a href="https://twitter.com/miakhalifa?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@miakhalifa</a> because she turned in her gun then you&#8217;re against responsible gun ownership. No one is more irresponsible . We used to take it off the wall to make the *Shunk Shank* sound when bored.
&#8212; Jeff Solomon (@JERFsolo) <a href="https://twitter.com/JERFsolo/status/997916789181943808?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 19, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>

Former Porn Star Gives Up Her Gun In Virtue Signaling Stunt, Parrots Democratic Talking Points

The mainstream media gave a massive spotlight to the anti-gun March For Our Lives, which featured many of the student survivors of the recent shooting in Parkland, Florida. However, there is a group of students planning the Stand for the Second walkout, orchestrated to support the Bill of Rights on May 2nd of this year. 
I spoke with the organizer, a high school senior in New Mexico named Will Riley, about the planned event, its message, and the reaction from his school, the media, and his peers. 
Q: What gave you the idea to do this pro-Second Amendment walkout?
WR: The National Day of Action and March For Our Lives were student-led movements that obviously had a lot of help from gun control organizations and the media&#8217;s response was to call for more gun regulations while claiming that this is &#8220;for the kids.&#8221; But when I look around, I see hundreds of students who are signing up for our march who are not for gun control, especially when former Supreme Court Justice Stephens comes out and says we should just repeal the Second Amendment entirely. What the media is saying is a mischaracterization of my generation. 
The reason we&#8217;re doing it as walkout, the (March For Our Lives) students received that as a platform from their schools. It was totally condoned, across the country, if not, then outright encouraged, and our movement deserves to have the same platform. We need an equal playing field or it&#8217;s viewpoint discrimination. 
Q: Is there significance behind the date, May 2nd?
WR: We chose May the second, since our theme is &#8216;Stand for the Second.&#8217; I started this about a month ago and we originally wanted to do it in April, but we decided to shoot for May to help better organize it. 
Q: How has the school district reacted? Have they been supportive, neutral, or hostile?
WR: The new principal was a little hostile but it was more about the students doing another walkout than the stance we were taking. He&#8217;s thinking, &#8220;They just did a walkout and now they&#8217;re doing another walkout,&#8221; so I don&#8217;t think it was a political issue as it was keeping us from walking out of school everyday. 
But, I explained to him that this is just something that we want to have an equal playing field. We&#8217;re only asking for 16 minutes, one minute less than the National Day of Action had. 
We chose 16 minutes because it is estimated that 1.5 million people use a firearm to defend themselves; if you break it down with our 16 minutes, that&#8217;s 91 people using a gun in a responsible and correct way without hurting innocent people. 
And after I spoke with the principal, we worked out something that did not interfere with state testing or finals, they allowed it, and even said they would provide extra security to make sure all goes well. 
Q: How have your peers reacted? Have they been supportive?
WR: Yeah, they have been. Most of the ones I&#8217;ve talked to are happy about it. I think a lot of people have been thinking the same thing. That is, the March For Our Lives and the National Day of Action don&#8217;t represent us or our views. They wanted a place to express their views and they are happy to see this platform. 
Q: The March For Our Lives got a lot of press coverage, both local and national as well as support from local politicians. Have you received any positive or at least fair reporting from the local and national media? Have any politicians come out in support?
WR: There are a few state newspapers that have given us fair coverage. There are two local television networks that have given us fair coverage and have interviewed me in a fair way. At the national level, the Washington Examiner published my <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/parklands-anti-gun-students-dont-speak-for-me-or-my-generation">op-ed</a> that I wrote for this, some conservative outlets have covered us, but not really anything else. 
As for as national organizations, the Tea Party Patriots are helping us get off the ground and stuff. 
Now to be clear, this is totally student-led, student-driven and the Tea Party Patriots are just helping us do things like help us get conference calls set-up to bounce ideas off each other and help us get an interactive map up. 
Outside of that, we don&#8217;t have quite the advantage that March For Our Lives had.
Q: If a student hears about what&#8217;s going on at your school, and wants to lead one on their campus, how can they can involved?
WR: A ton of people have already signed up. A majority of schools are outside of New Mexico and even outside the Southwest. We&#8217;ve gotten tremendous support and we&#8217;re in 300 schools right now in something like 40 states. If you look at our interactive map, there is a place to sign-up, the Tea Party Patriots provided a page on their website to help do that. You can link to that from our website; it&#8217;s all spelled out. 
Q: What would you say to a student who wants to get involved, but is afraid of pushback from the school district, teachers, parents, or their peers? 
WR: I would say this is an incredibly important issue and because it is the students who are being used in the arguments in this case, it is also incredibly important that we stand up now. Otherwise, there will be some horrible, unconstitutional action based on this myth that all of the students are supporting it. 
Around the country, the student organizers I&#8217;ve talked to, some have said, &#8220;I may be the only one who does this at my school. I live in an incredibly progressive area. I could get suspended.&#8221;
If that is what it is going to take for us to have our voices heard, then I would encourage you to do that. That is something that is heroic. 
Q: What do you want the message to be for this walkout?
WR: The message that we want to get out is that not everyone is on board with this shortsighted crusade against the Bill of Rights and the Second Amendment. I think there are still patriots coming up in the next generation and we&#8217;re trying to make sure that whenever it&#8217;s our turn to lead America, it&#8217;s going to be the America the founders intended and not some Orwellian nightmare created by destroying the Bill of Rights.
******
You can find out more about the Stand For The Second on their <a href="https://standforthesecond.com/">website</a>. If you&#8217;re interested in finding out if your school is involved, you can find the interactive map at the Tea Party Patriots <a href="https://www.teapartypatriots.org/school-walkout/#map">website</a>.

EXCLUSIVE: ‘Stand For The Second’ School Organizer Will Riley

Conservatism

High School

Media

New Mexico

Second Amendment

Students

The March For Our Lives against gun violence, organized by kids for kids, quietly registered as a 501(c)(4) with the D.C. Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, <a href="http://freebeacon.com/issues/march-lives-now-operating-dark-money-nonprofit-advocacy-group/">The Washington Free Beacon</a> reports &#8212; a designation that allows the March to keep its big money donors secret from prying eyes.
According to WFB, the March, whose signature event is scheduled for this Saturday, <a href="https://corponline.dcra.dc.gov/BizEntity.aspx/ViewContact?bizEntityContactId=693804&amp;currentTabConfigurationId=572">decided to incorporate</a> as a &#8220;social welfare&#8221; organization, and a non-profit, but not a 501(c)(3), a designation which would have allowed those who donated to the March to claim their contributions as tax deductions, but which would have required the March itself to submit a list of their contributors to the IRS.
As a 501(c)(3), however, donor information would become searchable as soon as the March filed their annual tax paperwork. Given how quiet the Parkland students agitating for gun control have been about who is funding and organizing their efforts, it&#8217;s no surprise that the adults in charge would seek to keep certain information out of the public eye.
One thing is clear from the March&#8217;s paperwork: the kids are definitely no longer in charge.
It was already evident that major leftists organizations were dictating the March&#8217;s agenda and schedule. Buzzfeed reported weeks ago that Everytown for Gun Safety, the Giffords organization, Planned Parenthood, and the Women&#8217;s March had all taken critical roles in organizing Saturday&#8217;s event. Key Democratic legislators, like Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), moved in on the kids quickly, and helped facilitate meetings with progressive groups.
The paperwork lists Jeri Rhodes as the March&#8217;s top official. Rhodes, according to WFB, &#8220;lobbies Congress and the administration to advance peace, justice, opportunity, and environmental stewardship,&#8221; and was formerly the chief financial officer of Greenpeace.
The <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/march-for-our-lives-action-fund_us_5ab02dbbe4b0697dfe19a488">Huffington Post</a> also discovered that while the kids are theoretically in charge, a &#8220;board of directors&#8221; that reads like a who&#8217;s who of progressive activists will decide how <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/stonemandouglasvictimsfund">the nearly $4 million the kids have raised</a> is spent.
<blockquote>
George Kieffer, chair of the Board of Regents of the University of California; Jeri Rhodes, who is with the Friends Committee on National Legislation, a Washington-based lobbying group founded by Quakers; Aileen Adams; who served under former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa; Nina Vinik, an attorney who has a background in gun violence prevention; Vernetta Walker from BoardSource, an organization that provides support for nonprofit leaders; and Melissa Scholz, an attorney who has expertise in nonprofit law.
</blockquote>
The Parkland students will serve as an &#8220;advisory board&#8221; with no apparent official say over how the funds are dispersed.
The March for Our Lives website says donations will go towards covering expenses so that students can attend the protest in Washington, D.C., but the March&#8217;s public relations firm told HuffPo that whatever&#8217;s left over will go to &#8220;&#8216;fight for comprehensive gun safety legislation&#8217; and to promote voter education, ballot initiatives and lobbying efforts.&#8221;
Leftists have long complained about the 501(c)(4) designation because it is designed, specifically, to hide how money is raised and spent. Mostly, progressive groups have charged that major conservative donors, like the Koch brothers, use the designation to keep their web of contributions quiet.
Now, it seems, they&#8217;re using the same designation to keep donors to the March out of the loop as to how their money is being spent, and where their donations are really going &#8212; because, it appears, those donations aren&#8217;t going to the Parkland students.

The March For Our Lives Forms Up A Dark Money Group To Hide Its Donors

Debbie Wasserman Schultz

Viacom networks, including MTV, went dark for 17 minutes Wednesday morning in a show of support for students attending the national walkout against guns or gun violence, or for gun control (the purpose of the walkout seems largely undefined).
Regardless &#8212; and regardless of whether anyone watches MTV anymore &#8212; the network began its solidarity protest at 10:00 a.m. EST, and in the 17 minutes that followed aired &#8220;inspirational&#8221; footage of students agitating for gun control, reports <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/8245255/mtv-goes-dark-to-honor-young-victims-of-gun-violence">Billboard Magazine</a>.
&#8220;The global youth brand will also honor the initiative across its social media platforms, with students at different school walkouts taking over MTV&#8217;s Facebook stories, Instagram stories, Snapchat and their Look Different (@LookDifferent) Twitter account,&#8221; according to Billboard. Viacom will also make the logos on all of its networks orange in support of Everytown for Gun Safety, until the national March For Our Lives on March 24.
Like Wednesday&#8217;s marches, the Viacom effort doesn&#8217;t seem to have taken into account a &#8220;return on investment&#8221; aspect; it&#8217;s not immediately clear what changing a logo and going dark for 17 minutes in the midst of a rerun of &#8220;Winter Break&#8221; will do for the larger gun debate. For Nickelodeon viewers &#8212; who also got 17 minutes of &#8220;inspirational&#8221; content &#8212; it probably meant 17 minutes of boredom (or 17 minutes of pestering their parents).

MTV Went Dark For 17 Minutes To Protest Gun Violence — But You Probably Didn’t Notice

Millennials

The Parkland students, now traveling America pushing for gun control in the wake of a mass shooting at their high school, are receiving help from some of the shining stars of the progressive universe &#8212; and even from some well-placed Democratic legislators &#8212; in their quest to change the nation&#8217;s gun laws.
<a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/maryanngeorgantopoulos/parkland-teens-organization?utm_term=.bcYXyV12B7#.mj7bKMq8Pv">According to a report from Buzzfeed</a>, which reads almost like a press release done on behalf of the March for Our Lives set to take place shortly in Washington, D.C., the Parkland students are getting help from everyone from Michael Bloomberg&#8217;s Everytown for Gun Safety, to the George Soros-funded MoveOn.org, to that notorious organization known for its impeccable commitment to child safety, Planned Parenthood.
Even the Women&#8217;s March is getting in on the act, helping the Parkland students to apply for permits and organize transportation and security for their March for Our Lives. And Giffords, the organization started by former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords and her family, says they &#8220;will be lending support in any way the students need, especially helping to operationalize these marches from logistics to programming&#8221; in Washington and at the &#8220;sister marches&#8221; across the country.
They&#8217;re even getting help from labor unions, including the American Federation of Teachers, and the students (and their parents) have now hired the national public relations firm, 42West, to handle their booking, media relations, and personal management.
It seems to come as a surprise to Buzzfeed that the students are receiving so much high-powered help. But a quick glance at their travel and meeting itinerary from the last week &#8212; which took them from New York to D.C., and involved a number of national cable news interviews and meetings with high-profile legislators &#8212; reveals that they would not have been able to make such an impact alone. Such a national campaign takes time, money, and connections these kids simply don&#8217;t have.
Until now, though, many, including those in the left-leaning media, have refused to admit that the Parkland students had help, insisting instead that the gun safety push was simply the end result of good old grassroots activism.
But even if the Parkland students wanted to &#8220;go it alone,&#8221; so to speak, they could hardly believe that major progressive organizations, who could use crying children to promote their political agenda, would somehow remain on the sidelines, particularly given how much money is to be made in supporting the March for Our Lives. The GoFundMe for the March has raked in nearly $3 million, and everyone who helps organize or &#8220;operationalize,&#8221; as Giffords put it, will get a piece of that pie.
Organizations like MoveOn and Planned Parenthood, although they have only a marginal connection to gun policy, will fundraise off their support for the March, from progressive activists who can&#8217;t make it to D.C., and from those who believe &#8220;intersectionality&#8221; is the key to winning major legislative battles.
But if their involvement is creepy, Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz&#8217;s involvement is downright ghoulish. The senior legislator from Broward County barely let a day go by before she was on the phone with Parkland students, organizing meetings and making introductions, in the hopes that the students could quickly accomplish her . . . errr . . . their legislative agenda.
<blockquote>
Democratic US Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Broward County resident for nearly 30 years, told BuzzFeed News she has been in touch with students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas since the day after the shooting, helping them connect to state legislators and plan their trip to Tallahassee last week.
Wasserman Schultz said that because this is the first time many of the students have interacted with legislators, she advised them on communication strategy. She also said she been in contact with Mark Kelly &#8212; Gabrielle Giffords&#8217; husband and one of the founders of the Giffords foundation.
</blockquote>
Rahm Emanuel would be proud; Debbie Wasserman Schultz knows how not to let a good crisis go to waste.

The Parkland Students Pushing For Gun Control Have High-Powered Progressive Backers

Florida

George Soros

Planned Parenthood

On February 21, Planned Parenthood tweeted out the following message:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Schools are meant to be safe &#8212; they are sites of growth and development for young people.
Parents should never have to fear that their children will lose their lives to senseless gun violence. <a href="https://t.co/rHCJyAawhb">https://t.co/rHCJyAawhb</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/EndGunViolence?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#EndGunViolence</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/NeverAgain?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#NeverAgain</a> <a href="https://t.co/Y1kRIDLw3t">pic.twitter.com/Y1kRIDLw3t</a>
&#8212; Planned Parenthood Action (@PPact) <a href="https://twitter.com/PPact/status/966381512219414530?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 21, 2018</a></blockquote>
</div>
Without a hint of irony, the abortion provider stated: &#8220;Schools are meant to be safe &#8212; they are sites of growth and development for young people.&#8221;
Below that, Planned Parenthood cited an alleged statistic: &#8220;As of 2013, the United States has averaged nearly one school shooting per week.&#8221;
While many on Twitter were quick to point out that alongside schools, a womb is &#8220;meant to be safe&#8221; and a &#8220;site of growth and development for young people,&#8221; no one seemed to question the &#8220;once a week&#8221; school shooting statistic.
Let&#8217;s examine that.
The tweet from Planned Parenthood links to an article. Within the article, a link to the organization from which they obtained the statistic can be found. Unsurprisingly, the abortion provider got their information from the infamous Everytown for Gun Safety.
Everytown&#8217;s official website has an <a href="https://everytownresearch.org/school-shootings/3492/">interactive map</a> where you can click on each of the alleged &#8220;291 school shootings in America since 2013.&#8221; However, upon further examination, it becomes clear that Everytown&#8217;s definition of &#8220;school shooting&#8221; is rather broad.
[[{&#8220;fid&#8221;:&#8221;30753&#8243;,&#8221;view_mode&#8221;:&#8221;default&#8221;,&#8221;fields&#8221;:{&#8220;format&#8221;:&#8221;default&#8221;,&#8221;field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]&#8221;:&#8221;Everytown for Gun Safety &#8220;school shooting&#8221; map.&#8221;,&#8221;field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]&#8221;:&#8221;Screenshot via Everytown for Gun Safety&#8221;},&#8221;type&#8221;:&#8221;media&#8221;,&#8221;field_deltas&#8221;:{&#8220;1&#8221;:{&#8220;format&#8221;:&#8221;default&#8221;,&#8221;field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]&#8221;:&#8221;Everytown for Gun Safety &#8220;school shooting&#8221; map.&#8221;,&#8221;field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]&#8221;:&#8221;Screenshot via Everytown for Gun Safety&#8221;}},&#8221;attributes&#8221;:{&#8220;alt&#8221;:&#8221;Everytown for Gun Safety &#8220;school shooting&#8221; map.&#8221;,&#8221;title&#8221;:&#8221;Screenshot via Everytown for Gun Safety&#8221;,&#8221;class&#8221;:&#8221;media-element file-default&#8221;,&#8221;data-delta&#8221;:&#8221;1&#8243;}}]]
Here are several examples:
<ul>
<li>On February 15, 2018, &#8220;a sound thought to be a gunshot put North Broward Preparatory School on lockdown. During the investigation of what turned out to be a false alarm, a Broward Sheriff&#8217;s Office deputy unintentionally discharged his firearm, injuring his leg. The deputy was treated at the scene.&#8221; This took place at North Broward Preparatory School in Coconut Creek, Florida.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>On September 12, 2017, &#8220;an unidentified campus security guard was carrying his personal handgun while on duty when he unintentionally discharged it while handling it, hitting himself in the shoulder. He was able to walk to a campus medical center, where he was treated for non-life threatening injuries. The security guard originally told officers he was shot by an unknown assailant, causing a manhunt and the campus to be locked down, but later admitted to shooting himself. He was arrested and charged with reporting a false crime.&#8221; This took place at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, Minnesota.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>On November 2, 2016, &#8220;shortly before school let out in the afternoon, an unidentified student shot and killed themselves in a car in the student parking lot. Grand Junction Police declined to immediately release additional details.&#8221; This took place at Grand Junction High School in Grand Junction, Colorado.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>On September 28, 2015, &#8220;a 21-year-old Montana Tech student was cleaning a firearm when he unintentionally discharged a round into the floor of his university-owned apartment. No one was physically harmed. The incident occurred in a 60-unit building that provides housing for students, families, faculty and staff.&#8221; This took place at Montana Tech in Butte, Montana.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>On April 13, 2015, &#8220;a 20-year-old assailant fatally shot Ron Lane, 44, with a shotgun in the school library. Law enforcement apprehended the shooter and charged him with murder. Lane was an openly gay man and the shooter admitted that he &#8216;hates gays with a passion.&#8217;&#8221; This took place at Wayne Community College in Goldsboro, North Carolina.</li>
</ul>
While the above incidents range from foolish to tragic, few would call them &#8220;school shootings&#8221; in the same vein as Parkland, Sandy Hook, or Columbine. Yet Everytown and Planned Parenthood don&#8217;t bother to make those necessary distinctions.
Taken at face value, Planned Parenthood&#8217;s info-graphic makes it seem as though &#8220;school shootings&#8221; like what occurred in Parkland, Florida, are a once-weekly occurrence, which is patently false.

Planned Parenthood Claims There Has Been An Average Of ‘One School Shooting Per Week’ Since 2013

Adults who prostitute traumatized teenagers to advance their political agenda should be ashamed of themselves, and those at CNN who do it should be fired. Last night, moderator <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oe4bKlbe7vI">Jake Tapper</a> looked on silently as Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student Cameron Kasky <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lo52BObqCds">compared</a> Sen. Marco Rubio to a mass child murderer. Kasky prefaced his ignorant attack on the National Rifle Association by saying, “Senator Rubio, it’s hard to look at you and not look down the barrel of an AR-15 and not look at [shooter&#8217;s name], but you’re here.” Such vile calumny would ordinarily demand censure even from the Democrat operatives of CNN. But by broadcasting their indefensible political views from the mouths of unassailable teenage survivors of a mass shootings, CNN inoculates Democrat talking points from criticism.
It’s little wonder that CNN, which regularly draws <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WozIa1r_Vkk">moral equivalence</a> between Hamas and the terrorists’ victims, would find nothing wrong with using children as human shields. Former CNN host Piers Morgan’s demagogic baloney didn’t survive the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHIQtxLCgrM">Shapiro meat grinder</a> during the network’s last major push from control. So in the wake of last week’s Parkland shooting, the network has focused all of its programming on broadcasting the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/15/us/david-hogg-school-shooting-new-day-cnntv/index.html">adolescent</a> <a href="https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/02/19/florida-shooting-survivor-emma-gonzalez-nra-gun-control-intv-newday.cnn">survivors</a> <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/21/us/david-hogg-conspiracy-theories-response/index.html">themselves</a>. Other left-wing networks and publications have rebroadcast those segments, and Twitter has awarded the most outspoken left-wing students blue checkmark endorsements.
Conservatives should be undeterred by this trick, rendered all the more transparent by a Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student enrolled in the ROTC program, Colton Haab, who <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/27451/cnn-responds-accusation-it-scripted-questions-james-barrett">alleges</a> that CNN told him to read a scripted question during their slanderous broadcast. CNN is now calling that student a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/27451/cnn-responds-accusation-it-scripted-questions-james-barrett">liar</a> — because we must listen to the children except when what the children say is inconvenient for CNN. Without falling into Democrats’ trap and stooping to attack the ignorant teenagers themselves, conservatives should aim their criticism squarely at the craven adults who exploit them.
CNN so desperately seeks to manipulate its audience’s emotions because the facts uniformly refute its gun-grabbing agenda. No gun control law proposed in recent years would have prevented this massacre. Over <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/27440/what-percentage-mass-shootings-happen-gun-free-amanda-prestigiacomo">98%</a> of mass shootings occur in “gun-free zones,” according to the Crime Prevention Research Center. According to the FBI, twice as many people are killed annually by <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-11">hands and feet</a> than by rifles of any kind, including the dread Armalite (AR) 15. Two-thirds of annual gun deaths are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/09/upshot/gun-deaths-are-mostly-suicides.html">suicides</a>, mostly by middle-aged men. Gun homicides in the United States have declined by almost <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/07/gun-homicide-rate-down-49-since-1993-peak-public-unaware/">50%</a> since 1993.
The gun-grab laws advocated by CNN would deprive Americans of their constitutionally-protected civil rights and not save one single life. Conservatives should respond without mercy. CNN impugns our motives and tactics; let’s relentlessly expose theirs. Conservative commentators should boycott the network. Those who do appear should, during each and every segment, remind viewers of last night’s exploitative, calumnious broadcast. They should call on those responsible for dishonest display to be fired. We should never miss an opportunity to remind our countrymen that the gun-free zones advocated by CNN demonstrably imperil children’s lives. Let’s not accept their dishonest premises, and let’s never miss an opportunity to strike. CNN has descended to a new, hideous low in its battle against conservatives. Let’s not bring a knife to a gunfight.

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