Say what you want about him, but Rep. Thomas Massie has been a strong defender of gun rights. Say what you want about him, but Sen. John Cornyn has not.
Both men, however, were defeated in their primaries.
Other than both having an “R” after their name, they didn’t have much else in common, and for at least one anti-gun group, the fact that they both lost while being diametrically opposed on the issue of guns is evidence of…something.
One of the nation’s leading gun safety groups has a message for Republicans: Tuesday’s results show you don’t have to be scared of the pro-firearm lobby anymore.
Giffords, an advocacy group cofounded by former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.), is sending a memo to all Republican members of Congress today —first shared with POLITICO — noting that pro-firearm groups largely sat out both Rep. Thomas Massie’s (R-Ky.) and Sen. John Cornyn’s (R-Texas) primaries, even as the two represent opposite wings of the GOP spectrum on gun control.
The ambivalence toward both one of the gun lobby’s strongest allies and one of its biggest Republican boogeymen shows its waning power, Giffords argues.
“Common logic has always been that the gun lobby can make or break you in a Republican primary,” Emma Brown, executive director of Giffords, told POLITICO. “Both of these primaries demonstrate a very different narrative: they just don’t have the juice anymore.”
Wait, the pro-gun lobby sat out two different races, and that’s proof they don’t make a difference? Honestly, I thought Kris Brown was the dumbest anti-gunner alive, but she works for Brady, not Giffords, so this can’t be her “brainchild.”
Cornyn supported the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act and, despite a long tenure in the Senate, was defeated by pro-gun Ken Paxton.
Massie, on the other hand, has been pro-gun. He also started talking a lot of smack about Israel, AIPAC, and basically sounding more and more like Tucker Carlson, at least in some minds, and so he became toxic to a lot of people. As a result, a lot of gun rights advocates opted to step aside and not support him this time around.
It might have been different if they hadn’t, and he lost, or if they’d opposed Cornyn and he won, but neither happened.
Plus, it’s ridiculous that Giffords still somehow operates on the idiotic belief that every Republican lawmaker secretly supports gun control, but doesn’t want to say so because of the uber-powerful gun industry or whatever. They can’t wrap their heads around the concept that some of these people actually do support the right to keep and bear arms. They’re convinced it’s all about money.
Then again, considering they spend like crazy to push some idiotic gun control laws, I guess this is a case of projection. How many Democrats would be silent on the issue of guns without groups like Giffords filling their coffers and demanding legislation?
Massie and Cornyn lost, not because the gun rights lobby lacks “the juice” to change elections–“the juice” was always the membership turning out to vote out an anti-gun Republican, anyway–but because of different factors. Their opting not to weigh in on certain primaries isn’t indicative of anything other than they decided to focus their attention elsewhere.
But then again, when the anti-gun agenda is practically on life support, can we be surprised that they’re trying to spin anything they can into a victory?
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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