TTAG central keeps a close eye on all your favorite gun control groups. Despite some reader blowback about giving Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America the “oxygen of publicity,” most of our coverage has focused on Shannon Watts’ media machine. That’s because MDA is the most active of the antis, at least in terms of media coverage. In fact, MDA – a wholly-owned subsidiary of Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns – has supplanted both their billionaire benefactor’s bilious anti-ballistic bully boys and the [previous] leader in the civilian disarmament industrial complex: The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence. Which raises the question . . .
How many calls do you think the Brady Campaign can muster today? I’m thinking not a lot. Not in comparison to the gun rights community, which, for example, completely dominated Illinois state senators’ phones when they were considering post-Newtown gun control laws. Not enough to raise their stock amongst legislators or concern their MDA rivals, who, it must be said, are incapable of assembling a sizable crowd at their “rallies.” [see: Brady’s petulant-if-somewhat-accurate analysis of MDA’s Facebook “victory”]
So what’s next for the Brady’s? Mark Glaze, Brady’s Executive Director, is about as media-friendly as a mortician. Colin Goddard, the handsome survivor of the Virginia Tech spree killing, is obvious by his absence from the proverbial field of battle. (Colin engaged me in a Tweet war, I invited him to debate, he declined and disappeared.) And the name “Brady” continues to fade in Americans’ collective conscious.
Perhaps the Fort Hood shooting will give the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence a new lease on life. Maybe they’ll get with the program and call for gun prohibitions for anyone who’s ever received mental health treatment, instead of fighting a rear-guard action on politicians who failed to support universal background checks.
Meanwhile, we hear that gun rights guys and gals are using the Brady’s Out Shout telephone number (1-855-506-7565) to thank their Congressman for voting against universal background checks and, thus, supporting firearms freedom. You might think that’s a great way to run up the Brady’s phone bill, but we couldn’t possibly comment. Until the increasingly desperate Brady Campaign makes another bone-headed move to gain relevance.