You’ve no doubt heard about Mayor Bloomberg’s reorganization of his gun control groups. The recently purchased media darlings Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and their less photogenic older sibling (Mayors Against Illegal Guns) are now subsidiaries of the newly formed Everytown for Gun Safety. Everytown Mayors Demanding Illegal Gun Action for Demanding Moms isn’t the only new conglomerate on the gun control block. The above video was produced by States United to Prevent Gun Violence, a gun control group that’s been around for four years. Checking their Affiliates page . . .

States United (which sounds like a soccer team to me) has 31 named affiliates. Although there’s nothing on the webpage to indicate who’s behind States United, the logo in the YouTube video has ceasefireusa.org underneath. Which led me to States United’s media rep, Sue Hornik.

Ms. Hornik told TTAG she’s been in the job since October. She admitted that States United has been flying below the radar for a while, although their first public service announcement, Ed, caused quite a stir. TTAG blogged that bad boy back in the day. Here it is again: 

Ms. Hornik said her coalition promotes the usual civilian disarmament agenda (although she didn’t quite describe it that way): universal background checks, safe storage laws, mandatory training for concealed carry permit holders, gun confiscation for people (i.e. men) convicted (yes convicted) of domestic abuse, etc.

Hornik had nothing but praise for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, crediting Shannon Watts’ mob for bringing more women into the “gun safety” fold. She welcomed Mayor Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety, pointing out that States United differs in that it “doesn’t get involved in elections.”

That said, Ms. Hornik claimed 130,000 members. She admitted that a “few groups” have paying members; “activist volunteers” make-up the vast majority of that stat. States United gets its funding from foundations and donations; Ms. Hornik declined to name the foundations footing the bill.

When I asked Hornik if States United supports the Second Amendment, she asserted that her members are law-abiding Americans who accept the Supreme Court’s rulings on gun rights. To back up her statement Hornik revealed that she grew up with a firearms-friendly hunting family in New Hampshire, a family that stressed responsible firearms ownership.

Ever the ambassador, I responded to Hornik’s support for actual gun safety – lock giveaways, suicide prevention programs, non-violence projects for urban teens – by asking if States United or it affiliates had ever reached out to the pro-gun side on these true common ground initiatives.

The soft-spoken spokeswoman paused. And then dodged the question entirely; pointing out the fact that States United had members who owned guns. Law enforcement officials, too! I signed off at the point, once again convinced that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. [h/t thegunwire.com]

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68 COMMENTS

  1. The kid automatically assumed that pistol = monster? Is this the only 8 year old in America who hasn’t played Call of Duty, or Battlefield, or any other M rated video game kids shouldn’t be playing in the first place?

    Oh, and apparently the next video consists of a man who doesn’t realize why soldiers in the 18th century had bayonets.

    Why do these idiots insist on producing videos?

  3. What does a kid accidentally shooting himself with an unsecured handgun have to do with G U N V I O L E N C E ????

    This is is sheer and total FUD.

    The second vid is utterly preposterous.

    • When a gun fires, it’s GUN VIOLENCE.

      When a gun is seen, it’s GUN VIOLENCE.

      When a gun is thought about with anything other than contempt, it’s GUN VIOLENCE.

      When any violence occurs and there is a gun anywhere in the vicinity, it’s GUN VIOLENCE.

      They have totally co-opted and re-defined the term “violence” as propagandists are wont to do.

      • When a single mom uses a gun to defend her children against multiple intruders, it’s GUN VIOLENCE. Forgot that one.

        • I did some shooting this weekend and my shoulder was aching from an old injury, that count as gun violence?

        • The definitions may not apply to gunbullies. Meanie.

          You got what you deserve for {gasp!} willingly handling one of those abhorrent things!

          But for their counting statistics, yes. Absolutely it counts as “injury due to GUN VIOLENCE.”

          As would, I suspect, getting a splinter while hanging targets at the range.

        • True story — I dropped a rifle butt-first on my foot once and almost broke my toe. My wife’s only comment was, “told you — guns are dangerous.”

  4. Wonder if the anti-gun groups are going to need some help with a merger and acquisition firm.

    What could be more grass-roots than that.

    Something these astro-turf groups don’t get — or the do and they don’t care…..

    They have a bunch of “members”, with member being kind of ill-defined. Are “members” people that show up or is it FB “Likes” and Twitter followers..and both the Google+ people.

    NRA members pay dues to be counted as members, and don’t send the bills to a foundation. Seems to me to fit the “grass roots” definition a bit more.

    • Shoot, lots of NRA members send CONTRIBUTIONS to a foundation (or several), not to mention not sending their bills. If about 3 people stopped being stupid about things not their business, the gun grabbers would be so over…

  6. So I looked at their affiliate site for TX and the only 2 issues they claim they’re fighing for is closing the private sale loopholes for NICS background checks and to prevent carrying in college classrooms. I very well may be a minority here but I don’t have any issue with expanding NICS background checks to private sales and gun shows (as long as that’s all it is) but I feel if the great state of TX has granted you a CHL (which requires training and a more stringent background check but also exempts you from future NICS checks), you should be able to carry in college.

    I have a sneaking suspicion that’s not all they’re fighting for though…

    • Background checks on private firearms sales would be akin to an insurance check on a private car sale, not to mention it would create an enormous load on the NICS system itself. Even then, how exactly would they enforce background checks on private sales?

      • Yeah that would be a pain when I think about it. Regardless, the record of sale for your firearm remains with the dealer (if bought from an FFL) for 10 years so I wouldn’t be too quick to offload a firearm to someone I didn’t know or trust just in case they go postal with it.

        I liken it to when you do a private sale of a car, I’m with the person the whole way to ensure that title gets properly transferred to cover my own ass. I’m releasing all liability of what that person chooses to do with it. I only buy new and if I sold one of my firearms, it would be to a dealer so that paper trail exists that I relinquished possession.

        • All?! Good god man. What would possess someone to do such a crazy thing? Unless it was to buy other guns, then I hope it was an upgrade.

      • Operative word is “Private” I have sold very few guns, always to relatives, most of whom have a CHL.
        I know that privacy is a dirty word where our govnerment is concerned. How I miss years gone by, where “None of you business,” was commonly stated .

    • Pretty sure poor parenting is the #1 cause of child endangerment no matter the method (guns, drowning, poison, abuse, etc) so where’s the “Moms Demand Action for Moms Being Real Moms (Dads Too!)” group? It’s for the children.

  8. Classify as “MAAN.” Much Ado About Nothing! Better enforcement of current laws => problem solved.

  9. Ants. I find colonies of red, stinging ants more inviting and admirable than these clowns who just jump on that anti bandwagon and parrot everything they hear.

    • best I can tell, those MDA harridans are not MILFs, as I understand the provenance of the term…

  11. The only thing that stops a bad guy with a flintlock is still a good guy with a flintlock. Guns may have changed, but reality has not.

  13. That video was so full of fail – how did I know how it would end?

    Maybe with all these anti-gun groups of publicists they will just dilute their message till it becomes background noise.

    Maybe we could all live with no electricity, nothing that can hold water more than a half inch deep, and no pointy things. Somehow I think people would still find ways to kill others and themselves. Man is a tool maker. When you start taking away the tools we are less than men.

    If Darwin was right, why do we want to prevent the stupid people from killing themselves? Doesn’t that just guarantee the decline of the human race? If the cartoon parents were too dumb to teach their child gun safety, or make the gun inaccessible, natural selection at work I say.

  14. the Ed video is hilarious, you could hit a target at a hundred yards with a yankee arm, they are implying u couldn’t hit someone ten feet away. plus he forgot about the bayonet for when reloading took to long

  15. That cutesy animated video says more about their philosophy than “gun violence” or gun policy. It’s a classic bait-and-switch shocker to turn your stomach and evoke a visceral panic response, and it presents the mother of all false dilemmas — either ban all guns or cute white kids blow their brains out. A safe is not a possibility. Training is not a possibility. Even laws that charge parents like these with negligence or child endangerment are not possibilities. In their world, guns are monsters, and they’re amping up the game because they are stupefied that others (like us) don’t feel the same. Ms. Hornik, there isn’t a TTAG reader who doesn’t feel sick in his/her gut at the prospect of a child playing unsafely with a gun. That’s why our kids are armed with knowledge, not fear.

  17. I don’t care if it makes me a heartless bastard, when I realized that cartoon kid was calling the gun a monster in the closet, I thought “what a wussy.”

  18. This video should say more about gun safety! 380 children died in 2010 via gunshot. I’m not talking about the same numbers as they are, because I don’t count 18 year-olds as children. I’m only counting real children, 14 and under.

    1.5 million “unsecured guns” and only 380 gun deaths among children. Strange.

  19. According to their 2012 Form 990, they took in just over $69,000 in “public support” (that was their whole income with the exception of some small interest income).

    Their 990 didn’t list any specific donors or funding sources for that money in 2012 (nor does the 2010 report).

    Their income has been going down steadily since 2008 (about $200K at that point and dropping every year).

    They lost about $20K last year.

  20. I think the real monsters are these gun-hating-peeps. The enjoy creating these gruesome commercials where kids are killed. Its like they fantasize about it all day long and can’t stop, won’t stop!

  21. So they really do believe that guns are monsters. And I wouldn’t be too worried about Ed–anyone who would miss at that range and fail to think of using his gun as a bludgeon probably wouldn’t get to far with a modern gun either–except maybe in an office of people too stupid to notice someone walking in carrying a Kentucky rifle. I guess they not only believe that guns really are monsters, they believe that people in general really are that stupid.

  22. What the antis are not mentioning is that in 1776 the Kentucky/Pennsylvania long rifles were the most advanced shoulder fired weapons of their time. If we were to argue technological equivalence, those “muskets” would represent firepower far in excess of any AR or AK today relative to government armament.
    And not for nothing, at least the British bought their own guns. We have to pay for the fed’s toys and our own

  23. So many here just don’t get it. It’s not about antis or pros, about lefties or righties, it’s about a small cabal that runs our government, both parties, that wants to finish off any chance of this country reversing itself from the debt slavery that has been forced on it. All else is arguing in a false paradigm, those of you who think establishment propaganda vehicles like Fox News somehow represent conservatives…….,oh well.

  24. I-N-D-O-C-T-R-I-N-A-T-I-O-N. Do you have your kids protected from this? (Protected means; educated on what is wrong and what is right, that guns are not evil but they require respect and training, and that these bad commercial advertisements are made by the real “bad” people).

  26. Ugh… I could barely stand to watch that video…. but I did. And I’ve just got to say that these people are little more than emotional suicide bombers. Trying to blast us with emotions while killing their own message with their blatant BS.

  28. Reminded me of that t.v. show. Supernatural.
    “When I told dad there was a monster under my bed, he gave me a .45…I was NINE!”

  30. The groups you mention are group grabbing rights not sane people. Walk quietly and carry a big gun!

  32. And an unlikely jab at “For the Children” from (of all places) Salon:
    http://www.salon.com/2014/04/21/insidious_political_cliche_alert_stop_saying_its_all_about_the_kids/

    What for-the-children rhetoric permits is for everyone — Democrats, Republicans, independents or otherwise — to stick their heads in the sand and act like these things are somehow incomprehensible mysteries because we’d prefer not to start the hard thinking and heavy lifting these issues require. We know, for example, that polluting our drinking water with chemicals and heavy metals is terrible; we just don’t want to stop because continuing is profitable. We want our children to stop, while giving ourselves an excuse to keep engaging in execrable behaviors indefinitely. And that’s appalling.

    Amazing.

    • While I am against the gun-grabbers, the issue in the monster video is relevant (loaded and unlocked guns around kids). However, the obvious way they demonize guns is a typical example of their attitude towards guns and owners.

      At John-Fritz: save me a seat, I laughed too!

  34. Why don’t they focus on household cleaners, swimming pools, or buckets? A lot of focus on a Kid finding a gun. There are hundreds of things a kid could find with which they could accidentally kill themselves. I guess dying by gun is more scary??? So they are going to focus on that?

    Seems like an issue of personal responsibility of the adults – and it pertains to many things – not just guns.

  35. Stop referring to others as “We”. Stop calling us “them”, etc.
    (WE aren’t polluting the water, or whatever.)
    I see no point at laughing at Crazy, Stupid, Lying, Crooks.
    I see no reason to assume that Crazy, Stupid, Lying, Crooks who try to take away our rights, our guns, our $, etc. , have good intentions.
    Gun control, basically speaking, is Unconstitutional. Study the 2nd Amendment.
    Crazy, Stupid, Lying, Crooked politicians aren’t us/ this country/ our government, etc.
    WE aren’t in debt- THEY are.
    “Governments” , “leaders” , “authorities” , “laws” , etc. , don’t exist. Free people, Free societies, Free countries, like THIS one, don’t HAVE such things.
    “Government property” doesn’t exist. Property that’s made, maintained, etc. , with Stolen tax $ (which, of course, belongs to the taxpayers) belongs to the public/ the taxpayers.
    The so-called “U.S. government” has an OFFICIAL Debt of over $17.5 Trillion, & Going Up. Various Experts, such as Boston University Economics Professor Laurence Kotlikoff, claim that their ACTUAL Debt is over $235 Trillion, & Going Up over $1 Trillion a year. They have virtually ZERO $ for anything whatsoever. So-called “governments” all over the world also have SEVERE Budget Problems.
    I’ve just sent you an Email. Everybody should get a copy of it, ASAP!

  38. Surprise, surprise. More emotional propaganda; no facts, no logic. *Yawn* In other news, I washed my clothes today.

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