Everytown for Gun Safety has made an announcement. They’ve announced the first round of Senate candidates they’re buying backing in this election cycle. These are the candidates they’re endorsing and will likely be throwing money at as well as likely paying for advertisements in local media at their own expense.

Of course, none of these are really surprising.

Everytown for Gun Safety on Tuesday rolled out its first round of Senate endorsements ahead of November’s crucial general election.

The gun-control advocacy group threw its support behind 11 Democratic Senate candidates including Mark Kelly in Arizona, former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, Theresa Greenfield in Iowa, Sara Gideon in Maine, Rep. Ben Ray Luján in New Mexico, Cal Cunningham in North Carolina, Jaime Harrison in South Carolina and MJ Hegar in Texas.

The endorsement of Gideon is particularly notable given the group endorsed incumbent Republican Sen. Susan Collins (D-Maine) in 2014.

The group also backed incumbent Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin (Ill.), Gary Peters

Of course, we can also look at these individuals as the candidates that Everytown has decided to buy this election cycle.

Oh, they’d bristle at the categorization, but I don’t really care. After all, they claim the NRA is buying candidates when they do this exact same thing, so what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

No, I don’t actually believe Everytown is buying candidates. That’s because I don’t believe the NRA is either and, as noted, the two groups are doing the exact same thing.

However, it’s only the NRA and other gun rights groups that seem to be “buying” lawmakers by making perfectly legal campaign contributions that are replicated by every other special interest group out there. Why is that?

It doesn’t help that the anti-gun allies that populate most of the media have failed to examine these claims critically. It’s funny how rarely these claims ever show up on fact check sites. That’s because no one on the left or in the media wants them critically examined.

So, if they’re going to continue this kind of thing, we should flip the script on them. These candidates are being bought by the anti-gun lobby. They’ll fail to defend our constitutionally-protected rights because they’re beholden to their master, Michael Bloomberg. They won’t represent the best interests of their constituents because they have to appease the man who really pays their bills.

And look at what happened to Collins for evidence of that. She failed to toe the line sufficiently, so they cut her off and have opted to fun her opponent.

Anti-gunners don’t get to play by a different set of rules. If these endorsements and contributions are buying candidates if one group does them, then they’re not exempt from being held to the precise same standard. They’re trying to buy your rights out from under you. Don’t let them get away with it. Back the candidates who aren’t bought and paid for by the anti-gun lobby and protect your basic civil liberties. Fail to do that, and your rights may go away forever.