Anti-Gun “Researchers” Face Harsh Reality

The reelection of President Trump is already paying great dividends for the Second Amendment, even at this early stage.  Beyond the obvious jettisoning of the most anti-gun administration to ever occupy the White House, we saw the anti-gun director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) decide to quit prior to Trump’s inauguration.  No doubt he was trying to save himself the embarrassment of being fired for running a law-enforcement agency guided by a political agenda, rather than actual laws and proven crime-fighting tactics like targeting violent criminals.

Other early victories for the pro-gun community include the resumption of the popular sales program through the Civilian Marksmanship Program of surplus U.S. Army M1911/M1911A1 .45 caliber pistols and, more importantly, the signing of an Executive Order to protect and expand the Second Amendment rights of all law-abiding American gun owners.

But that’s not all the good news.

We have also heard from The Trace—the anti-gun propaganda mill funded by anti-gun billionaire Mike Bloomberg—that anti-gun “researchers” are in a panic because they may have to find new sources to fund their anti-gun activities.

We have written numerous times about the inherent bias of this so-called “research,” as well as the abuse of tax dollars to promote their propaganda, and about federal agencies wading into the gun control debate when it is far outside their purview.

With Donald Trump in the White House, that gravy train may be ending soon.

A Trace article appears to paint the world of anti-gun “researchers” as being in a state of near apoplexy.  The underlying problem, it seems, is they will no longer be able to indiscriminately waste federal tax dollars to promote gun control policies that do little more than push America closer to the gun-free world many would like to see.

Of course, their “gun-free” world would simply be a world where law-abiding citizens cannot lawfully own guns.  Criminals would continue to ignore gun control laws in the world the researchers fantasize about, just as they do now.

One old veteran of the anti-gun “research” community, Garen Wintemute, lamented about young anti-gun “researchers” who might want to make a living in his field of gun control advocacy.  In December, at a gathering of hundreds of like-minded “scholars,” he commented about the possibility of federal dollars becoming scarcer to this younger generation of anti-gun advocates masquerading as “researchers.”

“[T]hey have no idea what’s about to happen because they haven’t lived through it, but I have,” claimed Wintemute, “and the federal funding is going to disappear.”  This mirrors The Trace’s claim that “researchers, physicians, and epidemiologists were stymied in their efforts to study gun violence as a public health issue,” claiming such a problem existed for “decades.”  What they really mean is that it is sometimes difficult to get federal funding for their partisan advocacy work on fringe issues.

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.  Again, we have covered this before.

The Trace article openly admits that the federal funding that has been available for years but is in jeopardy today is used to promote “progressive policies,” meaning they have a specific political leaning.  So, even with restrictions, under the Biden administration, federal dollars were still used for anti-gun advocacy.

Most Americans are not interested in their tax dollars being used to promote a specific political ideology.  When it comes to addressing violent crime related to firearms—what these “researchers” are allegedly trying to address—Americans look towards solutions that target violent criminals.

In stark contrast. most of the policies promoted by people like Wintemute and propaganda outlets like The Trace tend to affect only the law-abiding.

The Trace goes on to write about the apparent audacity of “the (Trump) administration’s attempts to grasp control of public institutions.”  But “public institutions” exist because of federal tax dollars.  Of course the federal government should have a measure of control over them to ensure the finite resources that come from US taxpayers are spent appropriately.  It is simply ridiculous that these “researchers” should just be handed whatever money they request from the U.S. Treasury and then not be expected to be held in any way accountable for what they do with that money.

Research on violent crime involving firearms should not be controversial.  What is controversial is trying to convince Americans that violent criminals who use firearms to intimidate, injure, or kill their victims is a public health issue akin to the outbreak of an infectious disease or illness linked to hazardous materials or contaminated food or water supplies,

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.

But the overt federal funds that go to anti-gun “researchers” are not the only tax dollars that may be on the chopping block.

Elon Musk has been generating quite a bit of news lately through Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).  While running for President, Trump stated many times that, if elected, he would bring Musk on board his administration to run DOGE.  As a result of what Musk and DOGE have been doing, we have seen evidence that federal money was “laundered,” some say, through the US Agency for International Development (USAID), only to find its way into the coffers of anti-gun advocacy groups.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation’s Larry Keane recently penned an opinion piece outlining concerns about USAID funds being funneled into anti-gun organizations.  While this issue is developing, and more details may yet come to light, initial reports paint a rather troubling picture.  We will, of course, closely follow developments on this front.

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.  And if they are blaming President Trump, then that just adds to the mountain of evidence that he is the most pro-Second Amendment president in the history of our great nation.