The battle for the future of America is on with this year's presidential election. Do we stick with the Democrats by electing Vice President Kamala Harris or do we go with former President Donald Trump? The decision is a little trickier than in past years, mostly because Harris has no primary campaign behind her. She didn't make months' worth of speeches and attend rallies of her supporters. Couple that with the fact that a lot of her early campaign was about "joy" rather than issues.

But now the race is on and everyone is looking for an edge.

That matters since one side survived an assassination attempt and has maintained a pro-gun stance while the other one has been rabidly anti-gun from the get-go.

And now, it looks like veterans are being recruited to sell things like gun control to the American people.

From Lee Williams at The Gun Writer:

The next time you see a social media post from a military veteran who claims to support banning certain firearms or any other infringement of our civil rights, realize they may be getting paid to violate their oath.

An email obtained last week by the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project revealed that the “precision micro-influencer” marketing firm People First is hiring veterans to serve as paid social media influencers for the Harris-Walz campaign.

It is not hard to understand why the progressive firm wants to hire former military members. Veterans have credibility — especially when the topic is guns. Whenever the gun-ban industry convinces a vet to call for an AR ban or violate their oath in some other way, they always tout it as a win. This is why Tim Walz is so celebrated by Giffords, Brady and Everytown. Before his stolen valor was revealed, Walz cultivated the false impression that he spent most of his military career knee-deep in grenade pins.  

People First has a long history of supporting the war against guns and Second Amendment Rights. They know what they’re doing, and they’re very good, unfortunately. Now, the New York City-based firm wants to recruit veterans living in seven key battleground states, but then explains in its recruitment email that they are open to hire anyone with a “compelling story,” regardless of where they live.

Now, the email doesn't explicitly mention gun control--it does, ironically, note that we veterans swore to defend the Constitution, not any particular man or woman, but skips over that whole Second Amendment thing--but as Williams points out, People First has an anti-gun history.

And you're deluding yourself if you think that won't be part of any effort this time around.

We all know that the veteran saying, "I served and I carried a gun just like that in Iraq/Afghanistan and it has no business on our streets" is going to get shared, played up, and made a big deal of. It always is, though we often find out that these guys may have deployed, but they never left the secure areas, never fired a single shot outside of the gun range, and know nothing at all about firearms, constitutional law, or any other relevant facts.

And now we know that many of them will be paid shills.

Look, when you're getting a check from one side, you're not about to call out that side for being stupid on anything. You're going to keep your mouth shut so you can get your money.

That is, of course, assuming one isn't in complete lockstep with the candidate. The question is, how can you trust a damn thing they have to say on the subject. Are these deeply held beliefs or are they just producing content to benefit their bank account? They craft their own posts, of course, but it has to get through their corporate masters, so it's not like they aren't without influence to some degree or another.

In this, Williams argues that they're violating their oath, and I agree.

Pushing things like gun control is in and of itself a violation of the oath to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic." It's bad enough when that attack on our rights is organic but it's so much worse when it's via paid shills.