According to the gun control lobby, Republicans have been bought and paid for by the NRA and the firearms industry, while Democrats are bravely standing up to the special interests and putting public safety ahead of campaign contributions.
There's just one little problem with that narrative. As the Everytown-funded website The Trace reports, gun control organizations have outspent gun rights groups by more than 13-1 in the 2026 election cycle.
That hasn't stopped Giffords executive director Emma Brown from making accusations of corruption a central part of the group's midterm strategy.
“Our midterm strategy is combining a weak-on-public-safety message with a corruption message, arguing that incumbent House Republicans have sold out to the gun lobby and the gun industry,” Brown told The Trace. “They’ve made it far easier for dangerous people to access firearms, endangering the lives of kids in school, and making it harder for law enforcement to do their job.”
That's a pretty remarkable accusation coming from an organization that's part of a political movement spending 13 times as much as its opponents to influence the outcome of November's elections. It's even more ridiculous when you consider that the homicide rate in the U.S. is on pace to reach an all-time low this year, and violent crime is the lowest it's been since the 1960s.
The gun control lobby has claimed for decades that the only reason why politicians vote against supposedly common sense measures like gun bans, universal background checks, and federal gun licensing laws is that they're essentially bought and paid for by groups like the NRA. I don't think that argument was ever true, but it's downright silly to make those claims when it's the gun control lobby that's now spending far more than their pro-Second Amendment counterparts.
If a Republican who gets $5,000 from the NRA has "sold out to the gun lobby," what about the Democrat who's getting $100,000 from groups like Everytown or Giffords? Are they bought and paid for too? Have they sold out to the gun control lobby?
It's a fair question, and an obvious one too, but for some strange reason it's also one that The Trace's Chip Brownlee apparently never asked Emma Brown. Brownlee seems to be content with simply advancing the narrative that Republicans are corrupted by gun lobby money, but Democrats are purified by gun control cash.
Of course, there's another possibility here. Maybe politicians aren't simply casting votes based on which side writes the biggest campaign checks. Maybe Democrats who support gun control and Republicans who defend the Second Amendment actually believe in the positions they're taking. Maybe their votes reflect the views of their constituents, or their own understanding of the Constitution, rather than the size of a political action committee's bank account.
That's apparently too much nuance for Giffords, which would rather portray its political opponents as corrupt than acknowledge that tens of millions of Americans sincerely disagree with its agenda.
I'm not suggesting that Everytown or Giffords are buying votes, any more than I believe the NRA is purchasing the allegiance of Republican lawmakers. Political organizations spend money to elect candidates who share their priorities. That's how political advocacy works, whether the issue is gun control, abortion, taxes, or climate change.
But if Giffords wants to make campaign spending a test of political integrity, it should apply that standard to its own side too.
After all, if taking money from the gun lobby is evidence of corruption, what does taking 13 times as much money from the gun control lobby prove?
I guess in Emma Brown's world, it's not the money that corrupts politicians, but who's signing the checks.