Democrat Cash Machines – AKA Teachers Unions – Funding the Push for More Gun Control

It’s never surprising when political activists – especially those supporting extreme gun control – exploit a horrific tragedy to push their agenda. It’s disgusting every time, but it’s not surprising any more.

Leave it to the leader of one of the nation’s largest unions, the American Federation of Teachers, to go all-in on that anti-gun agenda. At the same time, a new report reveals that that union’s membership overwhelmingly donates huge piles of campaign cash – nearly $50 million – to major political groups bent on electing Democratic officials who will support an agenda of infringing on the Constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans.

This revelation is, of course, not surprising to the firearm industry. We’ve seen this for years. But the details put an exclamation point on just how far they will go and how much they will spend to take away rights from Americans, while continuing to ignore criminals.

 

Call for Ban

It didn’t take long after a deranged murderer attacked students and teachers attending a school-wide mass at Annunciation Catholic Church for Randi Weingarten – the president of AFT – to call for a complete and total national ban of modern sporting rifles. The investigation is ongoing, but law enforcement has stated the murderer used a semiautomatic rifle, a shotgun and a handgun during the tragedy.

Like clockwork, Weingarten lied about firearms and law-abiding gun owners while making her immediate call to ban lawful and commonly owned guns.

“There are more guns on the streets than we have people. And the principal cause of death for kids is these kind of killings,” Weingarten told MSNBC’s Chris Jansing, according to The Daily Caller. “We have to fight for a nationwide assault weapons ban. Part of that fight is to create a culture that human life means more than a gun culture… but we cannot normalize this.”

Weingarten’s suggestion that law-abiding gun owners don’t value human life is disgusting and should be retracted. The firearm industry has championed numerous programs and initiatives to promote safe and responsible gun ownership for decades, all while protecting Constitutional rights. And her call for a nationwide ban on an entire class of firearms is blatantly unconstitutional. And ineffective.

In fact, private ownership of the firearms Weingarten wants to ban has surged in the past two decades, including significant numbers of women. NSSF data has shown more than 30.7 million MSRs are in circulation since 1990 – more than the number of Ford F-150 pickup trucks on the road. Additionally, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reports, data consistently shows that each year more murders are committed with knives, fists and clubs than by rifles of all kinds – including the MSR. Even more, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) determined the 1994 federal ban did not reduce crime and the impact on gun violence of renewing it would be “too small for reliable measurement.”

Groups Fund Gun-Grabs

The call by Weingarten to ban millions of lawfully owned firearms lines up perfectly with the groups with which she’s regularly associated. A Breitbart report recently confirmed what other media reported, that the AFT – led by Weingarten, herself – and a second major teachers union, the National Education Association (NEA), together donated nearly $50 million in hard political campaign dollars to various “Left-Wing” groups since 2022. One common goal shared by these groups is strict gun control, including pushing for a nationwide ban on so-called “military-style assault weapons.”

“According to the report, the unions funneled a combined $1.5 million to left-wing and dark-money groups such as the Tides Network, Sixteen-Thirty Fund, New Venture Fund, and Future Forward, a pro-Kamala Harris group,” Breitbart reported. “The report additionally found that the unions heavily funded groups that supported left-wing candidates in recent elections, giving significant sums to the Democratic Governors Association as well as the Democrats’ House Majority PAC and Senate Majority PAC. The unions also donated to left-wing think tank Center for American Progress and its 501(c)(4) arm, which bagged nearly one million dollars from the unions since 2022.”

Fox News also reported on those groups and how they are increasingly abandoning representing mainstream members – including those who are gun owners themselves – in favor of catering to the more progressive, antigun wing of their unions.

“Amid a trend of declining membership since the Supreme Court struck down mandatory union dues, the nation’s two largest teachers’ unions have poured tens of millions into left-wing causes,” Fox reported. As it turns out, when union members aren’t forced to pay dues out of their hard-earned paychecks towards unions who don’t represent them, they’ll up and leave – as they should.

That trend tracks with gun ownership more broadly across the country over the past few years as the gun owning community has become the most diverse in history – including more than 26 million new first-time gun owners since 2020. Many of those were politically independent and even Democratic-leaning. In fact, The Cut reported on the surge in African American women gun owners, deeming them the “new face” of American gun ownership.

Misguided and Unserious

Officials like Weingarten and other so-called leaders amongst these antigun groups are severely misguided and unserious about solving crime problems plaguing the nation’s cities – including near schools. Each and every incident like the Annunciation tragedy is horrific. What’s also horrific – and far, far more common – is criminal firearm misuse that happens weekly within major cities where criminals use illegally-obtained firearms to commit acts of violence. Even an NPR reporter – hardly a media outlet that favors gun rights – pressed former Vice President and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris on her ineffectual calls for an “assault weapons” ban.

“In cities like Philadelphia, handguns are responsible for most homicides and violent crime,” NPR’s Tonya Mosely began. “How will you address the issue of the use of handguns because a push for an assault weapons ban only addresses, um, a significant but small part of the problem?”

After the former vice president hemmed and hawed a bit, Mosely pressed again.

“Respectfully, we do understand that. But I’m asking specifically about handguns because many of those handguns aren’t purchased at places that run background checks. In many of those instances those handguns aren’t bought lawfully.”

Credit to Mosely for pressing someone on the misguided insistence on an unconstitutional gun ban while criminals continue to ignore those laws. Weingarten’s repeated calls for a so-called “assault weapon” ban continues to demonstrate she’s not serious about solving the issue. She’s the perfect unserious leader for an unserious organization not at all serious about protecting anyone – especially school children.

 

Matt Manda is Manager, Public Affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation.