I can’t tell you how many times I hear about how pro-gun lawmakers are bought and paid for by groups like the National Rifle Association. We keep hearing that his lawmaker or that advocate is a shill for the gun rights movement, yet they typically ignore the special interest groups they agree with, people who often spend a lot more money.

For example, we’ve already highlighted how anti-gunners outspent the NRA in the Virginia elections.

However, there’s a group that even outspent them.

Virginia Democrats swept into power in the state’s General Assembly on campaign promises to tighten gun laws. But another force went almost unnoticed: environmental groups, whose donations made them the largest single-issue donors in this year’s elections. They gave $6 million, mostly to Democrats, which is more than gun control and abortion rights advocates combined. Now, these green groups want sweeping change.

Some of the donations came from national organizations like the League of Conservation Voters, Michael Bloomberg’s Beyond Carbon Fund and the Sierra Club. But the largest single contribution — a third of all environmental campaign contributions in Virginia — came from one donor: Charlottesville-based hedge fund manager Michael Bills. He gave more than $2 million independently and through his political action committee, Clean Virginia. He donated specifically to candidates who refused to accept contributions from the power company Dominion Energy. He also supports banning public utilities from political contributions, an idea that’s failed to pass in past legislative sessions but which could get traction with the new Democratic majority.

“When we talk environmental issues, of course there’s a wide range, from toxic pollutants to transportation issues. But utilities and energy production is an absolutely key aspect of the transition to a clean economy,” said Brennan Gilmore, executive director of Clean Virginia. “You can’t address that without addressing the elephant in the room, which is Dominion energy.”

In other words, environmentalist groups bought and paid for politicians and now they expect a return on their investment? Those new legislators are bought and paid for by Big Environment and they need to step up and deliver or else their overlords will destroy them.

Oh, they won’t phrase it like that. Instead, as you can see, it’s all about noble groups supporting lawmakers who espouse the same beliefs and now expecting those lawmakers to follow through with them.

Yet it’s no different than the NRA donating to a candidate, now is it?

The truth is that the NRA doesn’t donate scads of money to anti-gun politicians and the environmental groups don’t donate money to “drill baby drill” types. They donate to candidates who are already espousing what they want from a politician.

It’s just somehow evil when the NRA does it and noble when some Michael Bloomberg-backed group does.

Frankly, that’s just hypocritical BS if you ask me.

Environmental groups outspent everyone in the Virginia elections, yet I guarantee you that some NRA-backed lawmaker is being accused of being on the group’s payroll because he supports gun rights even as you read this. Someone, somewhere, is making that claim and you know it.

It’s nothing more than an artifact of stupidity and either not understanding how the system works or hoping that you won’t understand how it works.