Where Are the Billionaires Who Want to Fund Civil Rights Defense and the Second Amendment?

In 2023, before he handed leadership responsibilities over to his son, Alexander, Open Society Foundations CEO and billionaire George Soros made a generous donation to an international gun control organization whose goal is to bankrupt lawful and highly regulated American businesses.

The financial gift was couch cushion money for Soros, but represented nearly 35 percent of the operating budget of Global Action on Gun Violence — the single largest contribution to the group to date.

Together with a $250,000 donation from Mexico — yes, the foreign country — GAGV has registered as a foreign agent on behalf of other countries and spent the past two years suing American firearm manufacturers in attempts to hold them accountable for crimes committed outside of the United States.

An American donating money to an organization that fights to eliminate the means for law-abiding Americans to exercise their Second Amendment rights is the opposite of being patriotic.

Mexico’s Failed Hail Mary

Thankfully, the United States has a Supreme Court comprised of Americans who understand our country doesn’t bend the knee to foreign governments’ demands that we solve their problems for them.

A unanimous decision — that’s 9-0 — handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court reinforced that reality in a ruling and obliterated Mexico’s $10 billion lawsuit against lawful American firearm manufacturers, including Smith & Wesson, Inc., and others. That failed lawsuit attempted to hold them responsible for the narco-terrorist drug cartel violence that plagues Mexico and its people.

Jonathan Lowy, the lawyer behind that spectacular failure, quarterbacked the failed legal Hail Mary and was funded by GAGV through the Soros donation and others. Referencing the bipartisan 2005 law enacted under former President George W. Bush, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, the Supreme Court Justices were succinct.

“Recall that Congress enacted the statute to halt a flurry of lawsuits attempting to make gun manufacturers pay for the downstream harms resulting from misuse of their products,” wrote Justice Elena Kagan in the unanimous decision. “In a ‘findings’ and ‘purposes’ section, Congress explained that PLCAA was meant to stop those suits — to prevent manufacturers (and sellers) from being held ‘liable for the harm caused by those who criminally or unlawfully misuse firearm[s].’ Mexico’s suit closely resembles the ones Congress had in mind: It seeks to recover from American firearms manufacturers for the downstream damage Mexican cartel members wreak with their guns.”

The failure in the highest court in the land by Lowy and GAGV wasn’t surprising. For Soros, his son Alex who now helms the Open Society Foundations, and other gun control groups, that outcome doesn’t matter so much. To them, it’s the process — specifically the cost of litigation — they care about to bankrupt firearm businesses along the way.

Spread It Out

As The Washington Free Beacon notes, the money for Mexico wasn’t the end of the spigot. GAGV registered as a foreign agent of the Bahamas in June 2024 to “to investigate, analyze, advise and litigate actions” in order to “reduce firearms trafficking to, and gun violence” there, the Free Beacon reported. They also spread north and now represent several families in Ontario, Canada, against Smith & Wesson, too.

These costly litigation efforts would be all but impossible if not for the deep wallets of the Soros family, looking to achieve gun control through financial suffocation of legal businesses rather than through legislation by duly elected representatives in our own country and government.

Of the money from Soros and the Open Society Foundations, GAGV paid lip service in explaining their goals. “We issued this grant because we want to curtail cartel and gang violence and cut off the flow of weapons that is enabling drug trafficking, which is killing American citizens,” a spokesperson for the organization said.

Again, the ignoring of the fact that none of the firearms illegally obtained in these foreign countries were provided through legal highly regulated processes is of no matter to the Soroses, the Open Society Foundations, GAGV or other gun control allies. In their estimation, no legal firearm manufacturer is acceptable and the money will continue to flow, even through supposed court “failures.”

Next Man Up

The younger Soros, Alexander, has already made it abundantly clear he won’t just continue his father’s work, but will go even farther to dole out the Open Society Foundations’ approximately $1.5 billion to favored causes. That includes big spending through Democracy PAC, Soros’s political action committee that widely and unabashedly backs “criminal-justice-reform prosecutors.” That total eclipsed $175 million in the 2022 election cycle.

To give a sense of where Alex Soros will continue to focus his efforts in attacking the firearm industry, he posted a picture of himself with an ear-to-ear grin standing next to New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, proudly stating, “So proud to be a New Yorker! The American dream continues! Congrats, Mayor @ZohranKMamdani!”

The next mayor, of course, supports defunding police, believes “violence is an artificial construct” and stated on social media, “We need to ban all guns.”

If you thought the elder Soros was giving unfathomable sums of money to fight against constitutional rights and lawful firearm businesses that allow law-abiding Americans to exercise those rights, just wait to see how much the younger Soros is willing to spend.

This is why the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act exists and it will never be clearer — and more necessary — than in the years ahead.

 

Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.