They also like to claim they're non-partisan, that they're really not Democrats or Republicans or anything else, just people wanting "commonsense legislation."

Yet, a California Republican is challenging their claims since they were nowhere to be found on his bill that was intended to actually address so-called gun violence.

Assemblyman Bill Essayli, known for creating soundbite-worthy controversies supporting conservative causes, says gun control organizations are “fake leftist groups” because they don’t support his legislation.

The Riverside Republican slammed Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and other groups while advocating for Assembly Bill 3037 during an Assembly Public Safety Committee hearing.

Essayli’s bill would have exempted courts from a requirement to dismiss longer sentences for certain gun violations, “even if it is in the furtherance of justice to do so.”

The committee voted down Essayli’s bill.

The law currently allows judges to add prison time to sentences, based on various factors. The enhancement Essayli’s bill addressed could have added 10 years to 25-years-to-life sentences for the use of a firearm, depending on whether it was loaded, discharged or used to hurt someone. He says his bill was meant to make it easier for courts to keep the enhancement in place.

Those opposing the bill argued judges already have discretion in dismissing sentencing enhancement, and the measure “seeks to carve out an exemption for enhancements regarding the use of firearm.”

Moms Demand Action and Everytown for Gun Safety have not taken a position on AB 3037, said John Cruz-Olivari, a spokesman for the groups.

But there was anger over Essayli’s characterization of the groups.

“This is not the kind of dialogue we expect from members of the state Assembly and we won’t be intimidated or deterred in our advocacy,” said Cassandra Whitestone, a volunteer with the California chapter of Moms Demand Action, in a statement. “We welcome conversations with elected officials from both sides of the aisle to discuss policies that can save lives from gun violence.”

And yet, removing people who use a gun in a violent crime won't save lives from "gun violence?" Really?

See, Moms Demand Action and Everytown have supported numerous measures that seek to disarm law-abiding citizens. They've supported every anti-gun bill that's come before the state legislature in California, just as they have elsewhere.

But this particular bill doesn't impact the average citizen. It only impacts criminals who are convicted of breaking the law while using a handgun – one could term it as them misusing it, really.

Yet, there were absolute crickets from the anti-gun groups. This is a bill meant specifically to impact violent, gun-related crime, and they couldn't be bothered to utter a single thing. Why?

Because the truth of the matter is that anti-gun groups are in the hip pocket of the Democrat establishment, a group that opposes actually sending people to prison.

Look, I don't think longer sentences act as a deterrent. I've come across too many idiotic criminals who are absolutely convinced they'd get away with their crime to think any of them are thinking about sentencing possibilities. They don't think they'll get caught, so why would they be concerned with a longer sentence?

But it does work to remove those proven to be inclined to violence from society for a period of time, which means they're not committing crimes. Since we also know that most violent crime is carried out by a particularly small subset of the population, it stands to reason that removing enough of those for a long enough period of time would reduce violent crime to some degree.

So if these groups are really about reducing violent crime rather than citizen access to firearms, they should jump at the opportunity, particularly if they're not beholden to Democrats.

Unfortunately, we know better, don't we?