6 ms·

Open secrets still shows quite a bit more spending on gun rights overall: https://www.opensecrets.org/news/issues/guns https://www.opensecrets.org/news/issues/g

Open secrets still shows quite a bit more spending on gun rights overall: https://www.opensecrets.org/news/issues/guns https://www.opensecrets.org/news/issues/guns Is that really even a surprise? Gun rights has an entire industry behind it.

COGlory 6y ago
Open secrets is an obviously biased source that believes there should be more gun control. Their compiled numbers could easily exclude anti-gun spending, and I'm inclined to believe their do. For instance, they say that in 2020, there was $1,540,000 spent on gun control[1]. The Montana ballot initiative referenced above had $1,629,596.12 spent in opposition to in in 2020 alone[2]. [1] Committees in opposition to LR-130 https://ballotpedia.org/Montana_LR-130,_Limit_Local_Government_Authority_to_Regulate_Firearms_Measure_(2020) https://ballotpedia.org/Montana_LR-130,_Limit_Local_Governme... [2]TABLE: Gun rights vs. gun control lobbying, 1998-2020 https://www.opensecrets.org/news/issues/guns https://www.opensecrets.org/news/issues/guns
- woodruffw 6y ago
  > Open secrets is an obviously biased source that believes there should be more gun control. Do you have a source for this claim? They're listed as a nonpartisan organization online[1], and it seems as though their founders were a pair of Democratic and Republican senators. Their current lead project appears to be tracing the Biden administration's money, which doesn't feel like towing the line to me. Edit: I found this conservative source[2], which refers to them as performing "left-wing" campaign finance advocacy. I think they're referring to the Citizens United decision, which has been a rallying point for every government watchdog that I know of. It occurs to me that (1) you could label just about anything as "left-wing" in this manner, and (2) campaign finance reform isn't something that most self-identified leftists would consider "left-wing" (being firmly in the "make government more transparent" category of political activity). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Responsive_Politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Responsive_Politics [2]: https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/center-for-responsive-politics/ https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/center-for-respons...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Anon1096 6y ago
    You can just read the page linked in the GP about gun spending. It's exceedingly obvious that they have a strong viewpoint on the issue.
    - woodruffw 6y ago
      "They have a strong viewpoint" is a not the same thing as "obviously biased." Conflating them is a rhetorical sleight of hand. When I go to that page, I get a few grafs on recent mass shootings (which, barring conspiracy theories, everybody is presumably on board with having happened). Mentioning those at all indicates that they have a viewpoint, but I don't see anything that indicates that it biases their transparency work. There's nothing to justify the insinuation.
      - COGlory 6y ago
        The examples gave about their data being incomplete, combined with the text on their page, paints a strong picture of bias.
- scarmig 6y ago
  I was curious about the discrepancy, and Open Secrets doesn't really report its methodology well here. I did some digging and found that it's the amount of money that is spent on lobbying federal officials, not a number inclusive of all kinds of political expenditures. It does seem a bit motivated to choose federal lobbying as the initial representation of spending around the gun issue, when it's clearly dwarfed by initiative campaign expenditures, donations to individual candidates, and electoral campaign expenditures.
  - COGlory 6y ago
    Thank you for investigating that. I can't edit my above comment anymore or I'd include that. Although I think the broader point, that anyone can make the spending numbers look a certain way, is still valid.
sky_rw 6y ago
The NRA is not the gun rights organization that the industry backs. That would be the NSSF.

COGlory 6y ago

Open secrets is an obviously biased source that believes there should be more gun control. Their compiled numbers could easily exclude anti-gun spending, and I'm inclined to believe their do. For instance, they say that in 2020, there was $1,540,000 spent on gun control[1]. The Montana ballot initiative referenced above had $1,629,596.12 spent in opposition to in in 2020 alone[2]. [1] Committees in opposition to LR-130 https://ballotpedia.org/Montana_LR-130,_Limit_Local_Government_Authority_to_Regulate_Firearms_Measure_(2020) https://ballotpedia.org/Montana_LR-130,_Limit_Local_Governme... [2]TABLE: Gun rights vs. gun control lobbying, 1998-2020 https://www.opensecrets.org/news/issues/guns https://www.opensecrets.org/news/issues/guns

woodruffw 6y ago
> Open secrets is an obviously biased source that believes there should be more gun control. Do you have a source for this claim? They're listed as a nonpartisan organization online[1], and it seems as though their founders were a pair of Democratic and Republican senators. Their current lead project appears to be tracing the Biden administration's money, which doesn't feel like towing the line to me. Edit: I found this conservative source[2], which refers to them as performing "left-wing" campaign finance advocacy. I think they're referring to the Citizens United decision, which has been a rallying point for every government watchdog that I know of. It occurs to me that (1) you could label just about anything as "left-wing" in this manner, and (2) campaign finance reform isn't something that most self-identified leftists would consider "left-wing" (being firmly in the "make government more transparent" category of political activity). [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Responsive_Politics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Center_for_Responsive_Politics [2]: https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/center-for-responsive-politics/ https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/center-for-respons...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Anon1096 6y ago
  You can just read the page linked in the GP about gun spending. It's exceedingly obvious that they have a strong viewpoint on the issue.
  - woodruffw 6y ago
    "They have a strong viewpoint" is a not the same thing as "obviously biased." Conflating them is a rhetorical sleight of hand. When I go to that page, I get a few grafs on recent mass shootings (which, barring conspiracy theories, everybody is presumably on board with having happened). Mentioning those at all indicates that they have a viewpoint, but I don't see anything that indicates that it biases their transparency work. There's nothing to justify the insinuation.
    - COGlory 6y ago
      The examples gave about their data being incomplete, combined with the text on their page, paints a strong picture of bias.
scarmig 6y ago
I was curious about the discrepancy, and Open Secrets doesn't really report its methodology well here. I did some digging and found that it's the amount of money that is spent on lobbying federal officials, not a number inclusive of all kinds of political expenditures. It does seem a bit motivated to choose federal lobbying as the initial representation of spending around the gun issue, when it's clearly dwarfed by initiative campaign expenditures, donations to individual candidates, and electoral campaign expenditures.
- COGlory 6y ago
  Thank you for investigating that. I can't edit my above comment anymore or I'd include that. Although I think the broader point, that anyone can make the spending numbers look a certain way, is still valid.

sky_rw 6y ago

The NRA is not the gun rights organization that the industry backs. That would be the NSSF.