I've had a problem with supposed gun violence research for some time now. It's all heavily biased and the fact that none was funded with taxpayer money after the Dickey Amendment passed until just recently kind of cemented that belief.

All the Dickey Amendment said was that tax dollars couldn't go toward gun control advocacy, which the researchers interpreted as impacting their work. That's probably because it was all really anti-gun advocacy.

Yet as bad as that was, it seems there was something more insidious going on.

As I'm sure you've seen, there's been a lot of unveiling of tax dollars going some pretty ridiculous places. Teaching journalists in Sri Lanka how to not use gendered language or something was stupid enough, but it seems that our tax dollars have, in fact, been going to help fund gun control advocacy.

From Lee Williams at The Gun Writer:

Have you ever heard of NEO Philanthropy? They’re a left-wing group that has been around for more than 40 years. NEO wants folks to believe it is a partnership between “changemakers and funders.” They claim to provide “resources to groups accelerating change.” Race, gender and DEI are huge for them, but guns are a problem.

An incredible website database has outed NEO Philanthropy’s actual duties, and those of thousands of other similar groups. NEO, it turns out, is nothing more than a middleman. It receives money and funnels some of it to Everytown for Gun Safety as well as other leftwing, anti-gun groups.

The website database is called DataRepublican.com, and it will forever change the way nonprofits handle their funding, especially those on the left.

...

It has already proven incredibly useful. On Wednesday, pro-gun official Hannah Hill “exposed taxpayer money flowing to Bloomberg gun control orgs.”

The next day, she used the website to link USAID funds that went to Everytown, Giffords and more gun-control organizations.

👀 Yesterday, @hannahhill_sc exposed taxpayer money flowing to Bloomberg gun control orgs.

Today, @DataRepublican's tool helped 2A advocates link USAID funds to Everytown, Giffords & more.

It looks damning at first blush—we're digging deeper. Stay tuned. https://t.co/FicdEOsb1d pic.twitter.com/se2Seffl1W

— National Association for Gun Rights (@NatlGunRights) February 5, 2025

Go and read the whole thing, folks.

What it looks like is that the money changed hands a few times, so things are a bit more complicated than just USAID handing money to Everytown.

But when taxpayer money ends up in the same pot as where money for anti-gun groups comes from, it's no different than that money coming straight out of our pockets against our will.

Yes, even if it goes into the same pot with private donations, the fact that taxpayer money is in there at all broadens how much can be spent where. If that money isn't there, then less can go toward groups that would then donate to gun control groups.

This shifting money around a bit to make it look like something else is basically just money laundering. They're moving it through a couple of seemingly benign groups knowing good and well that it will then end up in the hands of people who will try to undermine our right to keep and bear arms.

To call this infuriating is far too mild.

No wonder it feels like we're always battling uphill, no matter who is in power. No wonder the gun control groups have been able to outspend us over the last few election cycles.

Now, contrast this with New York Attorney General Letitia James and her attempted jihad against the NRA, which meant that organization--the proverbial 800-pound gorilla of the gun rights world--and you see how taxpayer dollars were being used to try and destroy a gun rights group while other taxpayer dollars were going toward bolstering anti-gun groups.

We're not just battling the other side in this debate. We're battling our own government, even when our guns are in control.

No matter how angry you might be at this, you're not angry enough.

I'm at the point of "heads, pikes, some assembly required."