AP Photo/Lisa Marie Pane

The purpose of gun control groups isn’t really gun control.

I do understand that anti-gunners keep pushing for gun control, but that’s not really what most of them are about, not really. They’re about something very different. You can tell based on how gun control groups reacted to the passage of two gun control bills in the House last week.

The proposed universal background check bill and “closing the Charleston Loophole” proposal are the most significant emergence of gun control legislation in congress in a generation, sparking jubilation among gun control advocates.

Kris Brown, president of Brady — the gun control group formerly known as the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence — called the House vote “a monumental step forward for gun violence prevention in our country.”

“On to the Senate!” she said.

Brown seems excited, doesn’t she? Especially since anyone with two brain cells left knows that the Senate isn’t passing a damn thing. So why is she so excited?

Oh, that’s easy. It’s about money.

What’s going to happen is that Brown and her organization are going to start hitting up potential donors. They’re going to tout this great victory and use it to try and motivate donors to kick in more money to the organization which will allow people like Brown to hire more gun control advocates and pad their wallets, turning gun control from an issue to an industry.

For all their talk about money and the National Rifle Association (NRA), claiming that pro-gun lawmakers are only that way due to donations by the nation’s oldest civil rights organization, they’re really no different. They’re throwing money left and right at candidates too. In fact, they outspent the NRA in last year’s midterm elections.

All of that is to justify begging for more donations.

They’ll tout this “victory” in their materials over the next little while because they know as well as anyone that donors like to back a winner. They’re not going to kick in money for a losing effort. They’ll blow it in Vegas if they feel like wasting their money.

So groups like Giffords need wins. They don’t even need real wins. They just need something they can claim is a win.

For example, their stooges in the House passed a couple of gun control bills that aren’t likely to become law any time this session. It’s not a real win. Not by any reasonable measure. It’s grandstanding, and Brown didn’t get where she is by not understanding that.

But since it’s grandstanding she can capitalize on, she’s thrilled.

“On to the Senate!” she said, but not even a hint that she recognizes that the Senate is, at best, an uphill battle? Not a one. That’s because she doesn’t really care all that much. She’s got something she can use to raise money with, money she can use to throw at candidates to get them to back gun control.

Do you know why groups like Brady are so fixated on the National Rifle Association and money? Because that’s all they’re about and they’re projecting that onto the NRA.