Everytown's "Hiding In Plain Sight" Report Falsified Claims, May Spur Lawsuit

We blasted Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety “Hiding In Plain Sight” report last week.

In its latest report, titled “Hiding in Plain Sight,” Everytown monitored guns for sale on three primary websites and in a sting-like move posted 24 guns for sale on a popular arms website between July 28 and Oct. 9.

Some 169 potential buyers responded. Investigators hired by the group checked criminal backgrounds and found that seven of the 169 were prohibited by law from possessing firearms.

By extrapolating the data, “gun sales transacted on just three websites put an estimated 126 guns into the hands of felons and domestic abusers in Vermont — and likely many more — in this year alone,” the report concluded.

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They “estimated” (but failed to prove) that so much as a single firearm was purchased illegally in Vermont as a result of person-to-person sales, despite their outrageous claims that made it seem commonplace.

But it gets worse.

We now know that at  least six of the firearm advertisements cited in the report were not from “unlicensed private sellers” as Everytown falsely claims, but from federally licensed firearms dealer Crossfire Arms of Mount Holly, Vermont.

I spoke to Crossfire Arms owner Bobby Richards just a short time ago, and he is understandably livid about Everytown using images of six firearms that he had for sale on Armlist to help falsify the anti-gun group’s dishonest report.

All of the firearms Mr. Richards lists for sale on Armlist are accompanied by photos that Mr. Richards takes himself, and perhaps as importantly, Mr. Richards watermarks each image with the Crossfire Arms company logo.

You’ll note that six firearms listed in Everytown’s report for Rutland County (where Crossfire Arms does business) clearly bear the Crossfire Arm’s watermark, and Mr. Richards confirmed that each and every firearm that he sells via Armslist require the purchaser to complete an ATF Form 4473 and a FBI NICS background check.

Put bluntly, Everytown’s report not only only drew false conclusions not supported by the data they’d acquired, but at least some of the the data itself is demonstrably false.

Mr. Richards is in contact with legal counsel to investigation whether or not Everytown may be the target of a civil suit for falsely asserting that Crossfire Arms violates federal laws that require him to conduct background checks with every gun sold through his business.

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Everytown has amassed a stunning track record of subterfuge in the brief time that the Bloomberg-backed organization has been around.

Politifact, FactCheck.org, and CNN were among those that pointed out that the group lied about the number of school shootings that have taken place in the United States since Sandy Hook.

It seems self-evident that nothing produced by Everytown for Gun Safety can be accepted without rigorous fact-checking, as they have proven that they will say or do nearly anything to push their agenda, including falsifying report data and results.

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