A month ago the conventional political wisdom was that Dr. Mehmet Oz was going to get blown out by John Fetterman in the race for U.S. Senate in Pennsylvania. While Oz has yet to take the lead in any pre-election survey, there are signs that the race is definitely tightening up. On Wednesday, for instance, the Cook Political Report moved their prediction for the race from “Lean Democrat” to “Tossup”, a decision based at least in part on shrinking leads for Fetterman in many recent polls and an influx of campaign spending on the part of Republicans.

Now the gun control lobby is hoping to blunt the impact of a flurry of GOP advertising with a campaign of their own. The Michael Bloomberg-backed Everytown for Gun Safety is pouring more than $2-million into the state’s Senate and gubernatorial races, launching new ads bashing Oz and Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano for their opposition to new gun control measures.

he TV and digital ads will launch in the Philadelphia market Wednesday, and come as Oz, the GOP candidate for U.S. Senate, has made a major push to try to woo voters in the city and its suburbs.

While Oz has slammed Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman as soft on crime, the first ad in the Everytown campaign argues that Oz’s views make women less safe, by potentially making it easier for domestic abusers to obtain guns.

“When an abuser’s armed, women are five times more likely to be killed,” says the ad, reported first by The Inquirer. “Mehmet Oz would make it easier for domestic abusers to get guns, even opposing background checks on all gun sales.”

In a seeming answer to Oz’s attacks on Fetterman, the spot concludes, “Mehmet Oz won’t keep us safe.”

Everytown plans to spend $1 million airing that ad in the Philadelphia market alone.

Fifteen people were killed in domestic violence incidents in 2021 — the highest number of domestic violence homicides in the city in at least the last six years. It’s nearly double the average recorded over the prior three years.

At least seven children were left orphans by the violence, with their parents either dead or in jail.

Organizations that provide support to people experiencing abuse have worked hard to meet fluctuating needs during the COVID-19 pandemic, which forced many to rethink how they provide services, said Abigail Hansen, chief program officer of SafeHouse Denver. The nonprofit organization has seen fewer new clients reach out during the pandemic, but Hansen said that might mean fewer people are in a safe position to ask for help.

“There’s definitely not less domestic violence happening, I can say that with certainty,” Hansen said.

Gun control is an absolutely terrible way to protect the victims of domestic violence, but for the gun control lobby and its allies like John Fetterman, its always more important to target guns than to deal with the flesh-and-blood human beings who commit these terrible acts. While their proposed “solutions” wouldn’t impact violent criminals, they would make it harder for domestic violence victims to defend themselves as one Oklahoma woman was forced to do just last weekend.

A woman says she was raped in her bedroom before she grabbed a gun and shot at her accused rapist several times, according to police in Oklahoma. She struck him in the foot, then “left the scene out of fear for her life,” Tulsa police said in a news release shared on Facebook. Officers were called to the shooting in northeast Tulsa at about 1:55 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 2, according to the post. The man, identified as Wilfredo Gomez, was taken to a hospital.

… The woman had a protective order against Gomez, according to police. Gomez was arrested and taken to the Tulsa County Jail, where he faces charges of rape by force or fear after former conviction of a felony and violation of a protective order.

The gun control ideology that Fetterman so eagerly embraces is premised on the idea that, if we restrict access to firearms for law-abiding citizens there’ll be some sort of trickle-down effect on violent criminals. As we’ve seen time and time again, though, actual criminals are largely unconcerned by gun control measures. It’s the law-abiding who are most impacted, and at a time when violent crime and homicides are near record highs in Philadelphia, Fetterman’s soft on crime, tough on the Second Amendment approach will only make things worse.