Remember when the National Rifle Association was awful because it put so much money into elections? Time and time again, we’ve heard how the NRA buys pro-gun officials and how the NRA owns the pro-gun lobby. It was clear that somehow, the NRA shouldn’t be permitted to do so. Either that or any candidate who accepted NRA money was somehow tainted and should be dismissed out of hand.

But, apparently, it’s only wrong when the NRA does it.

The Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund is spending millions to support candidates in four states, underscoring the extent to which gun control is shaping up to be an issue in the November midterm election.

The fund, the political arm of the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety, plans to spend $8 million to $10 million in Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and New Mexico as an initial investment in the election. It will include contributions to candidates, as well as independent expenditures such as mail, television, radio and digital ads.

“This is not a movement of blue states. This is a movement of Americans,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety, a nonprofit organization. “The old third-rail warnings are out the window and you can redraw the map and work on gun safety virtually anywhere in this country.”

Feinblatt said the initial sum is a “curtain raiser” on what will come between now and the election.

Everytown’s strategy to change gun laws has focused on statehouses. The focus on individual races is an outgrowth of that, Feinblatt said, and resources are being used where the group thinks it can make the most difference.

Just remember this the next time some anti-gunner goes on and on about how the NRA “owns” certain politicians.

Look, I don’t have an issue with Everytown doing this. I think its targets are kind of dumb. For example, it’s throwing money at Stacey Abrams here in Georgia, where I seriously doubt she’ll win, but Everytown’s certainly free to waste its money if it wants to.

The reason I have no issue with Everytown doing this is that I’m not a hypocrite. If I support the NRA doing this, I have to support allowing its opposition to do the same.

However, I do have a problem with the hypocrisy being spouted by so many anti-gunners. They seem to see the NRA’s money as pure evil, nothing but blood money used to pay off complicit politicians or something. Yet somehow money from their side is a different matter and works in completely different ways. Their motives, in their mind, are pure so their money is just being used just to help worthy candidates achieve greatness.

It doesn’t work that way.

You don’t get to pretend your motives are pure while doing the same thing you decry your opposition doing. That’s hypocrisy at it’s finest, and I’m going to call you on it.

Gun rights are a battle for this election cycle, but we’re not going to be forced to play by a completely different set of rules.