As the Trump administration cracks down on what many describe as wasteful, partisan government spending, anti-gun “researchers” are worried they will no longer be able to use taxpayers’ money to push their propaganda.
The Trace, which is bankrolled by former New York City Mayor and failed presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg, recently published a piece highlighting the grievances of anti-gun “researchers” who will no longer be able to bill the American taxpayer.
“For public health researchers and experts who have studied gun violence for years, uncertainty has coursed through decades of efforts to track and fund their scholarship. Now, as the new administration takes aggressive steps to reverse progressive policies and allow pandemic funding to expire, uncertainty is once again the prevailing notion in their field,” reads the article.
The piece also quoted noted anti-gun “researcher” Garen Wintemute, a professor at the University of California, Davis. While presenting his latest “gun violence research” on “political violence and protective orders,” Wintemute said, “the federal funding is going to disappear.”
Framing this as a “public-health” issue is a favorite tactic of gun controllers, including former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, who last year declared “gun violence” to be a “public-health crisis.” In reality, he is referring to a crime issue—law-abiding Americans, by definition, are not the ones to blame.
The Trace also notes that federal funding for “progressive policies” has been available for years, thanks to pandemic policies, but is in jeopardy now that we have a president who appreciates this constitutional right.
The NRA Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) reported: “Wintemute and The Trace may be having a flashback to the days when Wintemute, and others, falsely claimed federal law stopped the publication of gun-control ‘research.’ In fact, federal law merely restricted federal funds from being used to promote anti-gun propaganda. Anti-gun ‘researchers’ were still free to publish their propaganda, and they regularly did (including Wintemute); they just had to secure their money from the myriad sources of private sector funding, like from anti-gun billionaires Michael Bloomberg and George Soros.”
America’s 1st Freedom also reported recently that the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) had strong ties to organizations founded by George Soros and, through these ties, was financing anti-gun groups.
“The revelation that USAID has been financing, albeit indirectly, efforts to undermine the Second Amendment is yet another example of taxpayer money being weaponized against American citizens,” wrote Susanne Edward for America’s 1st Freedom.
“As long as research is done legitimately, with no obvious preconceived outcome or bias built into the work, nobody—including NRA—should have a problem. It’s when anti-gun ‘researchers’ begin their work with the goal of supporting their anti-gun views that we—and anyone else who doesn’t have an unnatural, visceral hatred of firearms and the Second Amendment—raise objections,” wrote NRA-ILA. “Ultimately, if anti-gun extremists are complaining about a possible end to federal funding for their efforts to excise the Second Amendment from the Constitution, then that’s a very good thing.”
