By Dave Workman | Senior Editor
Anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns quietly contributed $30,000 in December to an anti-gun initiative campaign in Washington State, putting the lie to suggestions that the now-former New York City mayor was cooling his jets on the gun issue.
TGM learned of the contribution from Public Disclosure Commission reports filed by the Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility, the Seattle-based big money organization backing Initiative 594, a 17-page gun control measure touted as a “universal background check” proposal.
Ironically, one day after the PDC report became public, the Daily Olympian in an editorial that blasts competing Initiative 591 for its potential to become “a highly charged emotional campaign funded by the NRA and other outside interests…” That newspaper serves the state capitol, and is consistently anti-gun in its editorials.
The newspaper got it wrong, because the National Rifle Association has so far not been involved with the initiative, nor given any money to its campaign. References to the organization amount to a bogeyman strategy, gun rights advocates assert, because they underscore the newspaper’s expressed reservations that the battle between Washington’s dueling initiatives “has the potential to turn nasty.”
The newspaper described I-594 as being “backed by the Washington Alliance for Gun Responsibility, a coalition of citizens and organizations,” it says nothing about I-591 being almost entirely a grassroots enterprise supported by Protect Our Gun Rights. That coalition includes gun owners, hunters, collectors, competitors and law enforcement professionals. Organizations backing the measure include the Bellevue-based Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, the Washington State Rifle & Pistol Association, Hunters Heritage Council, Washington Arms Collectors and the Washington State Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors Association.
Evergreen State gun rights activists have generally “excused” NRA from the initiative battle so far, recognizing that the organization had its hands full last year with gun rights battles in other states, including Colorado and Virginia. If, however, the NRA does enter the initiative fray this year, Northwest firearms owners – including tens of thousands of NRA members – have been reminding the gun prohibition lobby what happened the last time that organization became involved in a Washington State initiative battle.
In 1997, Initiative 676 was on the ballot. Had it passed, it would have become one of the strictest gun control laws in the nation. Disguised as a “safe storage” measure, it could not muster the support of most newspapers, and there was massive opposition from the law enforcement community. On election night, the measure was crushed by a 71-29 percent margin.
The newspaper also asserted in its editorial that a provision in I-591 preventing government gun confiscation without due process is “an NRA-fueled red herring scare tactic.” In fact, following Hurricane Katrina, more than 1,100 firearms were seized without warrants or probable cause, or anything resembling due process, from citizens in an around New Orleans. It took a federal lawsuit filed jointly by the NRA and Second Amendment Foundation to stop those confiscations.
According to PDC reports, I-594 has raised a total of $1,435,263.73 and spent $1,338,440.47. On the other hand, I-591 backers have raised $705,827.59 and spent $697,446.83, or roughly half of the money reported by the gun control effort, yet they gathered as many, if not more petition signatures. A look at the PDC reports show the vast majority of I-594 money is coming from Seattle-area contributors. Contributions to I-591 have come from all over the state, and one $35 donation came from Lake Havasu City, Ariz.
