We’ve got a ton of news for you guys this week.
First up, the NRA and Everytown have announced new big-dollar ad buys. Contributing Writer Jake Fogleman takes a deep dive into where they’re spending and, more interestingly, what they’re saying. Because the ads are less about guns than you might expect.
Then, we have some breaking news from the Supreme Court. It has accepted Smith & Wesson’s request to review their fight with Mexico, which means The Court will have at least two gun cases this session.
After that, I go over the VP debate. It actually talked about guns! In a substantive way! Unfortunately, it was also a pretty generic exchange that missed the biggest gun stories of the cycle.
Plus, crime data analyst Jeff Asher joins the podcast to explain the decline in the murder rate and whether the way we measure it is reliable.
For me, it’s nice to have so much news to distract me from the Phillies blowing an absolutely beautiful performance from Zach Wheeler in game 1 of the NLDS. Hope game 2 isn’t as awful to watch. Oh well, at least the Eagles can’t disappoint me since they’re on a bye this week!
Analysis: Everytown, NRA Lean on Non-Gun Issues in Ramped Up Election Spending [Member Exclusive]
By Jake Fogleman
With Election Day less than a month away, the biggest players on both sides of the gun debate have started ramping up their ad spending significantly. Where they’re choosing to spend, and the messages they’re relying on are telling.
The National Rifle Association (NRA) and Everytown for Gun Safety announced new multi-million dollar ad buys in the last week. While the buys were in different races, they shared a common theme of mixing gun policy messaging with other issues–most notably crime and abortion.
On Tuesday, the NRA’s Political Victory Fund (PVF) unveiled a “seven-figure ad buy” in Ohio targeting incumbent Senator Sherrod Brown (D.) and boosting challenger Bernie Moreno (R.). The group did not disclose precisely how much it would spend on the ad campaign, only that it would air on cable networks statewide until the election. Recent Federal Election Commission independent expenditure disclosures show the group has spent $575,551.38 in support of Bernie Moreno and $510,150.62 against Sherrod Brown so far this cycle.
The group’s new 30-second ad features three women seated at a gun range and leads with messaging on crime.
“Crime isn’t just happening on TV,” the ad begins. “When seconds count, the police are minutes away. Because soft-on-crime politicians like Sherrod Brown turn their back on law enforcement and refuse to protect our rights to self-defense, even putting anti-gun judges on the bench.”
“Senator Brown has failed us,” the ad continues. “NRA-endorsed Bernie Moreno will defend our rights. Vote like your life depends on it because it might.”
The Ohio ad buy is the NRA’s second major investment in the 2024 cycle after the group launched its $2 million ad-blitz against vulnerable incumbent Senator Jon Tester (D.) in Montana last month. The pattern suggests the group is focusing its leaner-than-usual election coffers this cycle on the Senate, specifically for vulnerable Democrats that could plausibly tip control of the chamber toward more gun-friendly Republicans in November.
By contrast, Everytown’s announcements this week centered partnerships with outside PACs on ad spending for the Presidential race and competitive House races in deep-blue states. On Thursday, Everytown’s super PAC launched a $5 million digital ad campaign in partnership with Future Forward, the single-largest Democratic-leaning super PAC in the country funded primarily by tech entrepreneurs and Michael Bloomberg.
The newly formed partnership released two ads set to run in Michigan and Pennsylvania, each boosting Kamala Harris and opposing Donald Trump. In at least one of the ads, the groups emphasize Harris’ credentials as a tough-on-crime supporter of law enforcement, with gun policy playing second fiddle.
“‘Back the blue.’ For Kamala Harris, it’s more than a slogan,” the ad begins. “She’s prosecuted rapists and murderers, brought gangs to justice, hired thousands more police officers, and expanded background checks to keep guns away from violent criminals.”
“But Donald Trump says he’d repeal those background checks and cut hundreds of millions from the COPS program,” the ad continues. “So ask yourself: Who backs the blue? The convicted felon out for himself, or the prosecutor who put more cops on our streets?”
The second ad released by the partnership presents a more conventional gun-control message.
“Leaders show themselves at our darkest hours,” the narrator in the second ad says. “When kids are being gunned down in their classrooms, Donald Trump says, ‘Get over it.’ While his VP pick calls school shootings ‘a fact of life.’ Enough is enough. Kamala Harris has a real plan to pass meaningful gun safety laws and keep kids safe.”
On Friday, Everytown’s super PAC unveiled a similar $10 million advertising partnership with House Majority PAC, the political arm of House Democratic leadership. They announced a campaign of ads on digital and streaming platforms in New York and California battleground districts. Thus far, the effort has only released two ads, each targeting New York Representative Brandon Williams (R.).
Both ads focus heavily on an issue even more removed from gun policy than crime: abortion.
“Abortion banned without any exceptions. Guns in the hands of violent criminals,” one ad begins. “It could happen in New York if Brandon Williams is re-elected to Congress. Because Williams is pushing an extreme agenda to let MAGA politicians ban abortion, even in cases of rape or incest. And he’d roll back gun safety laws like background checks, making it easier for violent criminals to get guns, no questions asked.”
In fact, the second ad doesn’t mention guns at all.
“When Roe v. Wade got overturned, Brandon Williams called it ‘a monumental victory,'” the ad opens. “Because Williams spent years trying to rip away abortion rights: voting to restrict abortion medication, punish doctors and nurses, and ban private health insurance plans from covering abortion.”
“And in Congress, Williams could help MAGA Republicans pass a national abortion ban, even in cases of rape,” it continues. “Even in New York State. Brandon Williams: He’s dangerously wrong on abortion.”
Where groups on either side of the gun debate are choosing to make their biggest investments in the home stretch of the 2024 cycle is indicative of where they’re feeling confident. For the NRA, that’s the Senate. The Senate map strongly favors Republicans this cycle, and election analysts give the GOP strong odds of regaining control of the chamber.
By contrast, this new flood of gun-control spending on the House and the Presidency may reflect the fact that Democrats are narrowly favored to win back the House, while Kamala Harris maintains a slim polling lead over Donald Trump. In other words, both sides appear to be using their war chests to press their current advantages rather than attempting to shore up races with longer odds.
At the same time, while the NRA has not yet invested in television advertisements to boost its preferred presidential candidate the way Everytown has, the group has still invested in the former president in other ways. The NRA PVF has spent $1,917,709.82 in independent expenditures supporting Trump this cycle, according to FEC filings. That’s far less than the group famously spent in 2016 to help get Donald Trump elected, but that could have more to do with the group’s beleaguered state than its confidence in his electoral odds. Tellingly, the group also announced on Friday that the former president would be headlining its upcoming “Defend the 2nd“ event in battleground Georgia later this month–the third time Trump will speak at an NRA event this year.
Gun groups highlighting other politically salient issues in their ads isn’t a new tactic, to mixed results, but the popularity of it this cycle may be indicative of how gun politics have taken a back seat in 2024. Voters have downplayed guns on their list of priorities throughout this election season, and neither candidate has sought to make it a marquee issue–Trump has even actively deprioritized it.
It will be worth watching if these strategies persist for both groups in the final days leading up to Election Day, where the outcome will prove which efforts paid dividends.
SCOTUS Agrees to Hear Smith & Wesson Fight with Mexico
By Stephen Gutowski
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) has accepted Smith & Wesson’s request to decide whether Mexico’s suit against the gunmaker should be tossed out.
On Friday, SCOTUS granted cert in Smith & Wesson v. Mexico. The case centers on the foreign government’s claim that the American firearms industry writ large, and Smith & Wesson in particular, is responsible for cartel violence south of the border. The Court will decide whether that claim is viable under the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA).
The central questions in the case do not directly deal with the Second Amendment, instead focusing on whether the gun industry’s actions can be legally connected to harms inflicted by criminal cartels in another country. However, Smith & Wesson argued in its petition to The Court that the suit directly impacts the constitutional right to keep and bear arms because Mexico’s goal is to effectively outlaw the sale of certain popular firearms in the United States.
“Simply put, Mexico detests the American system that makes firearms readily available to law-abiding citizens in accordance with the Second Amendment,” the company said in its filing. “It makes no secret of its view that ordinary citizens should not be allowed to buy an AR-15 or a firearm capable of holding over ten rounds. And it finds abhorrent how law-abiding Americans have the liberty to obtain such firearms without having to beg for the government’s grace. ”
The outcome of the case could have a significant effect on lawsuits that seek to hold gun companies responsible for criminal acts of third parties that use their products. There has been a resurgence of suits like that since the families of Sandy Hook victims successfully settled a case against the now-defunct Remington Arms after SCOTUS declined to take up a similar request to intervene from that company. If SCOTUS allows Mexico’s suit to move forward, it will likely motivate many more plaintiffs to file cases against the gun industry. If not, it could have the exact opposite effect.
Smith & Wesson appealed to the Supreme Court after a three-judge panel of the First Circuit Court of Appeals gave the $10 billion civil liability suit a green light. That court reversed a district judge’s ruling that the PLCAA foreclosed Mexico’s claims. Instead, the panel concluded Mexico’s suit fit into one of the carveouts Congress included in the PLCAA’s liability shield.
“We agree that the PLCAA’s limitations on the types of lawsuits that may be maintained in the United States apply to lawsuits initiated by foreign governments for harm suffered outside the United States,” Judge William J. Kayatta wrote. “However, we also hold that Mexico’s complaint plausibly alleges a type of claim that is statutorily exempt from the PLCAA’s general prohibition.”
Judge Kayatta, a Barack Obama appointee, ruled Mexico’s claim that American gun makers are “aiding and abetting” illegal firearm sales is allowed under the law.
“Fairly read, the complaint alleges that defendants are aware of the significant demand for their guns among the Mexican drug cartels, that they can identify which of their dealers are responsible for the illegal sales that give the cartels the guns, and that they know the unlawful sales practices those dealers engage in to get the guns to the cartels,” he wrote. “It is therefore not implausible that, as the complaint alleges, defendants engage in all this conduct in order to maintain the unlawful market in Mexico, and not merely in spite of it.”
Smith & Wesson told SCOTUS the First Circuit’s ruling “brazenly defies” established precedent and “threatens severe consequences.”
“Absent this Court’s intervention, Mexico’s multi-billion-dollar suit will hang over the American firearms industry for years, inflicting costly and intrusive discovery at the hands of a foreign sovereign that is trying to bully the industry into adopting a host of gun-control measures that have been repeatedly rejected by American voters,” the company wrote. “Worse, so long as the decision below remains good law, scores of similar suits are destined to follow from other governments, both foreign and domestic—all seeking to distract from their own political failings by laying the blame for criminal violence at the feet of the American firearms industry.”
The gun company argued it was vital for The Court to intervene at this point because of what effect fighting the case on the merits, even if it’s eventually successful, could have.
“Even if ultimately unsuccessful, the costs of that litigation will be devastating—not only for defendants, but more importantly for the millions of law-abiding Americans who rely on the firearms industry to effectively exercise their Second Amendment rights,” Smith & Wesson said. “This type of lawfare is exactly what Congress enacted PLCAA to avoid.”
The Supreme Court has already scheduled oral arguments in another gun-related case, Vanderstok v. Garland, for next Tuesday. While it recently sidestepped several Second Amendment cases earlier this year, accepting Smith & Wesson v. Mexico means The Court will once again deliver at least two opinions in gun cases during its upcoming term.
Podcast: The Murder Rate Nosedives (with Crime Data Analyst Jeff Asher) [Member Early Access]
By Stephen Gutowski
This week, we’re looking at crime data and the unprecedented drop in the murder rate.
That’s why we have Jeff Asher from AH Datalytics back on the show. He has been following and reporting crime data for decades, and he explains how dramatic the downturn in murder is compared to the incredible spike we saw just a few years ago. He said 2023 saw a record drop in murder, and 2024 is on pace to see the same.
Asher discussed how crime stats are calculated, addressed some of the critiques of them, and explained why he believes murder data is especially trustworthy this year. He also noted violent crime and property crime haven’t followed murder. While they, too, have fallen in recent years, they also never saw the same kind of horrendous spike that murder did in 2020 and 2021.
You can listen to the show on your favorite podcasting app or by clicking here. Video of the episode is also available on our YouTube channel. An auto-generated transcript is available here. Reload Members get access on Sunday, as always. Everyone else can listen on Monday.
A free 30-day trial of The Dispatch is available here.
Plus, Contributing writer Jake Fogleman and I recap the Vice Presidential debate, where the candidates at the top of the ticket were asked substantive gun policy questions for the first time all season. We also unpack the latest monthly gun sale data showing a trend of rising sales heading into the election. We wrap up with a discussion on the Massachusetts Governor’s executive action to undermine a grassroots gun-rights campaign as well as a new ACLU brief the group filed in support of a Second Amendment challenge.
Analysis: VP Debate Discussed Guns, Skipped Some of the Biggest Stories [Member Exclusive]
By Stephen Gutowski
The Vice Presidential candidates spent a good chunk of Tuesday’s debate talking about gun policy but little time on the major gun stories of the race.
Ohio Senator JD Vance (R.) and Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D.) had a lengthy exchange about firearms. It was civil. It was even substantive.
However, neither brought up some of the most controversial stories of the race. Kamala Harris’s history of supporting gun confiscation efforts, including her newly-resurfaced backing of a 2005 San Francisco pistol possession ban, was absent from the discussion. So was Donald Trump’s status as a felon who is currently prohibited from owning any guns at all.
Why the two men at the bottom of the ticket avoided these topics is a bit perplexing. They were somewhat limited by what they were asked, but either candidate had the opportunity to bring up whatever they liked. After all, the two questions they were asked focused on whether parents of school shooters should be prosecuted and Walz’s flip-flop on banning “assault weapons,” which both candidates moved beyond to broader topics pretty quickly.
What they did cover was also less impactful than it may have seemed at first glance. Outside of agreement that each side wants to solve school shootings and a relatively uncontroversial position that parents of shooters should be charged on a case-by-case basis, the two sides mostly hit the notes you’d expect from them.
Vance argued that, while he doesn’t like the idea, the best plan for preventing school shootings is greater school security.
“The idea that we can magically wave a wand and take guns out of the hands of bad guys just doesn’t fit with recent experience,” Vance said. “So, we’ve gotta make our schools safer. I think we’ve gotta have some commonsense, bipartisan solutions for how to do that.”
Walz responded that other countries don’t have the same problems with school shootings, and gun restrictions are the reason why.
“I ask all of you out there, do you want your schools hardened to look like a fort?” Walz said. “Is that what we have to do when we know there’s countries around the world that their children aren’t practicing these kinds of drills, they’re being kids.”
Vance responded that we have different problems than places like Finland.
“We, unfortunately, have a mental health crisis in this country that I really do think we need to get to the root causes of because I don’t think it’s the whole reason why we have such a bad gun violence problem,” Vance said, “but I do think it’s a big piece of it.”
Walz fired back that, no, it is the guns.
“I think what we end up doing is we start looking for a scapegoat,” Sometimes it just is the guns. It’s just the guns, and there are things that you can do about it.”
Then Vance pointed to intercity violence as another significant difference between the US and other countries. Walz pointed to rural gun suicides as an even bigger problem.
In other words, this was a back-and-forth that could’ve been had between any generic Republican and Democrat at pretty much any time in the past decade or more.
There were a few flourishes to this campaign in particular. Walz made sure to plug the fact he and Harris own guns. Vance highlighted illegal cross-border gun-running.
Vance came off as more polished, too. Walz, at one point, implied Harris was also a hunter. He also said he had become friends with school shooters when he apparently meant school shooting survivors.
The debate was a much longer and more substantive conversation about gun policy than we’ve seen at any other point of the race, including the Republican primary race. But it was still mostly a cordial exchange of well-established positions on issues that haven’t defined the 2024 gun debate.
That’s it for now.
I’ll talk to you all again soon.
Thanks,
Stephen Gutowski
Founder
The Reload
