These are tough times for the anti-gunners at March For Our Lives, or at least the few who remain. Last March the group laid off 13 of its 16 full-time employees, and since then the group has basically been running on fumes. In an attempt to regain some relevance within the gun control movement (and to attract some donations as well), the group has launched a brand new campaign called "The Machine."
For years the gun lobby has counted on confusion. They want you to believe gun violence is a force of nature and something that just happens to us.
— March For Our Lives (@AMarch4OurLives) August 18, 2026
It isn't. It's a commercial industry engineered to turn our lives into their profit. And every machine can be taken apart.
Today…
There are several fundamental problems with the premise of MFOL's argument. Let's start with the fact that violent crime is plummeting across the country, murders are the lowest the've been since at least the 1950s, and gun sales are still steadily running about 1 million per month. In fact, over the past few months the National Shooting Sports Foundation has reported an increase in sales compared to last year.
MFOL also ignores the basic fact that "gun violence" is committed by a very small number of people in any given community, the vast majority of whom are unable to legally own firearms because of their age or previous criminal history. Under MFOL's theory, I shouldn't even be mentioning this to you, because I'm supposed to get you to believe that "gun violence is a force of nature and something that just happens to us."
I've never actually heard anyone in the Second Amendment community make that argument. I think most of us are aware that violent crime isn't a force of nature, but are acts committed by individuals. In MFOL's view, though, the person pulling the trigger doesn't really matter. They're mere puppets of the gun lobby and firearm manufacturers, who are pulling their strings.
Visiting the website that March For Our Lives has designed to showcase its "interactive manual naming every bolt, wire, and dark-money channel keeping this industry afloat" is where things get really hilarious. It's like a real-life version of the It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia meme.
The "machine", according to MFOL, is comprised of manufacturers, lobbyists, "legal architecture", dark money, and PACs. That, of course, describes virtually every industry in the United States that actively lobbies in defense of its interest. With the exception of "manufacturers," it also describes the ecosystem of the gun control machine.
One of the funniest things about March For Our Lives' attempt to lay out the schematics of the pro-gun "machine" is that it's woefully incomplete. The only lobbying groups named by MFOL are NRA, Gun Owners of America, National Shooting Sports Foundation, National Association for Gun Rights, and the American Legislative Exchange Counsel. No Second Amendment Foundation. No Firearms Policy Coalition. No Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms. No FRAC. No American Suppressor Association, and none of the state-level groups like Gun Owners Action League or the MN Gun Owners Caucus.
MFOL only mentions six gun companies and three "key personnel," one of whom (Wayne LaPierre) is no longer actively involved in either the NRA or the Second Amendment movement.
If that movement really is a machine, then March For Our Lives is missing some key components: the thousands of FFLs across the country, the hundreds of thousands of firearm trainers who are giving new gun owners the education they need to be safe and responsible, 2A influencers, grassroots activists, firearm attorneys, and the 80-to-100 million lawful gun owners in the United States.
If, as MFOL contends, this "machine" is set up to fuel "gun violence," then it's doing a terrible job. Violent crime and homicides are plunging across the United States at the moment, despite the predictions of gun control activists that shootings would soar after the Bruen decision and the implementation of permitless carry in 29 states.
As you might have guessed, there's no mention of the decline in violent crime and homicides at MFOL's new website. The last thing they want is for people to learn about violence declining while millions of firearms are entering private hands each year. As it turns out, it's actually March For Our Lives and other gun control groups who are dependent on confusion and ignorance to sell their message.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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