The National Rifle Association, in the midst of its leaders being called in an ongoing bankruptcy trial, looks to be flexing muscle elsewhere: The gun rights group is launching plans to lobby Congress against gun-control measures that have the backing of President Joe Biden and other top Democrats.
On Wednesday evening, the group announced a $2 million campaign to fight Biden’s agenda, including opposing his nominee to lead the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. This, according to a report in Wednesday’s Washington Post.
More than $400,000 is said to be targeted toward Maine, West Virginia and Montana, where influential senators’ votes on gun control are in play and new TV ads will implore viewers: “Stop Biden’s gun grab.”
“Tell Joe Manchin to reject President Biden’s extreme gun-control agenda,” the ads say, aimed as they are at each state’s senators. As pictures of Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer appear, an announcer describes a Biden plan to “ban commonly owned firearms” and nominate David Chipman, “a radical gun-control activist” to become director of ATF. Among his credentials and in addition to his 25 years at the bureau, he has been a policy adviser to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
The intensifying debate over gun control measures comes after a recent series of lethal mass shootings, which have brought renewed calls for universal background checks and a ban on assault weapons.
The chances of such legislation passing are already unclear. Though they could make it through the Democrat-controlled House, the Post opined, a GOP filibuster would likely block any measures in the Senate, even if all Senate Dems were on board with bolstering gun laws.
