OUTRAGE: ANTI-GUN RIGHTS GROUPS APPLY FOR & GET TAXPAYER FUNDED COVID-19 PAYCHECK PROTECTION FUNDS
PAYCHECK PROTECTION FUNDS TO ANTI-GUN-RIGHTS GROUPS AN OUTRAGE
SEE: https://www.saf.org/paycheck-protection-funds-to-anti-gun-rights-groups-an-outrage/;
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation today said the recent revelation that the anti-gun-rights Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence took a federal Paycheck Protection Loan worth up to $1 million, while working to keep gun stores closed is an “outrageous exploitation of the COVID-19 pandemic to prevent people from exercising their constitutional rights.”
The Brady group reported received between $350,000 and $1 million on April 10. Likewise, the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence reportedly accepted a loan worth between $150,000 and $350,000 in April, to meet payroll for 16 employees.
“SAF had to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars from contributors to file lawsuits during the coronavirus shutdowns to keep gun stores open as essential businesses so Americans could exercise their Second Amendment rights,” SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb said.
Gottlieb is also chairman of SAF’s sister organization, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, a grassroots political activism organization. That organization also had to raise funds from generous donors to continue its efforts to protect, rather than erode, the rights of American citizens.
“We didn’t take a penny of taxpayer money, nor did we even apply, because that simply would not have been appropriate,” he stated.
“On the other hand,” he added, “the Brady and Gifford groups fought to keep gun stores closed while taking taxpayer funds to stop people from being able to buy firearms and ammunition to protect themselves and their property from violence including rioters, looters and arsonists.”
“More appalling is the fact that, according to their latest tax returns, the Brady and Gifford organizations have several millions of dollars in assets,” Gottlieb noted. “They did not need any taxpayer money to keep their doors open.”
“This is yet another fraud committed by the gun prohibition lobby against the American people,” he said.
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Taxpaying Gun Owners Being Forced to Fund Brady Subversion
BY DAVID CODREA
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational & research purposes:
U.S.A. – -(Ammoland.com)- “One of the country's leading gun-control groups took a Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan worth up to $1 million even as its PAC pledged to spend millions in the 2020 elections,” Stephen Gutowski of The Washington Free Beacon reported Friday. “The Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence received between $350,000 and $1 million on April 10 to support 41 employees, according to the Small Business Administration.”
They’re doing it, an organization flack says, because they’re losing money due to COVID-19, and have had to cancel fundraising events. The Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence has also had its hand out, and “accepted a loan worth between $150,000 and $350,000.”
The reason they can do this is that they have different IRS-assigned tax statuses for their “educational” arms and their “advocacy” arms. Gun owner rights groups split functions, too, but the difference here is they’re not applying for relief on the taxpayer’s dime. Gutowski cites Alan Gottlieb, who “said no part of his organization took PPP loans [and] called on the gun-control groups to return the money they received from the program.”
This is not the only way gun-grab groups that take advantage of IRS rules to undermine the right to keep and bear arms. As this column reported in May, Everytown for Gun Safety is “partnering” with “faith partners” to help spread the “gospel” of citizen disarmament, and by playing fast and loose with tax exemption rules, these groups are de facto opposing Republicans and supporting Democrats, all while claiming donations are tax-deductible.
As this column also documented in January, Everytown’s founder, Mike Bloomberg, took advantage of Federal Election rules. to obtain Superbowl ad time as a candidate. Per a report at The Federalist, “[T]he billionaire mayor gets a lot more for his money as a candidate than he ever could as a donor or even as the operator of a super PAC. “Then, there’s something campaigns have that no PAC has — and that’s access to the best rates the market has to offer.”
In essence, the gun-grabbers not only have the billionaire patrons and all the “free” publicity they want from the DSM (“Duranty/Streicher Media”) parroting their talking points and masking their press releases as “news,” but they also get the tax breaks. While looking into abuses would definitely be in the interest of Americans struggling to preserve their rights from constant assaults, don’t look for anything but more of the same – and targeting of “conservative” groups – with Democrats controlling the House, and who knows what after November?
The government has no money that does not come from the private sector. Forcing gun owners through taxation to in any way help finance groups working to take away their rights is reminiscent of nothing so much as an added insult to injury practiced by totalitarian regimes, the “bullet fee.”
As Australian newspaper The Age reported in 2003 about China:
Many public executions have been held in football stadiums so traditional execution methods are no secret. The condemned criminal is taken by open truck to the execution ground and made to kneel with hands cuffed and head bowed, before being shot in the head. Families who want to reclaim the body are charged for the bullet.
In 2009, CBS News reported a similar practice in Iran:
On Saturday, amid the most violent clashes between security forces and protesters, Mr. Alipour was shot in the head as he stood at an intersection in downtown Tehran …Upon learning of his son's death, the elder Mr. Alipour was told the family had to pay an equivalent of $3,000 as a “bullet fee” — a fee for the bullet used by security forces — before taking the body back, relatives said.
Those who demand a monopoly of violence demand nothing less than total submission from those they would control. Ultimately, our resistance to their aims is not about guns, but about nothing less than freedom. We would do well to remember that not just the right to arms, but taxation without representation for their concerns, was also a driving issue prompting Americans to rebel against the Crown.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.