Virginia Attorney General-elect Jay Jones sure looks to me to be an objectively bad person. From his reckless driving conviction and the shady way he did his community service to the infamous text messages, he just comes across as the kind of person I don't want in the same zip code as my kids.
And anti-gun groups backed him, then pretended they didn't, and now Brady is pretending it was on his side the whole time.
In fairness, Brady probably was. They only care about violence when it's convenient to them and their case, obviously, but their antic now should disqualify them from ever being taken seriously on the subject again.
A gun control group that rescinded its endorsement of Jay Jones (D., Va.) last month over his text messages fantasizing about shooting a Republican colleague is now claiming to have "proudly" supported the Virginia attorney general-elect after his victory this week.
Brady PAC praised Jones and his fellow Virginia Democrats' "seismic wins" in Tuesday's election, saying that their victories show that "Gun extremism is rejected soundly" in the commonwealth. Jones defeated Republican incumbent Jason Miyares by 6 points in the race, a narrower margin than Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger's (D., Va.) 14-point victory and Lt. Gov.-elect Ghazala Hashmi's (D., Va) 11-point win.
"These successes forcefully reject extremism, mark a historic win for safety, progress, and accountability, and chart a course for more gun safety majorities in 2026," Brady PAC said in a statement, adding that it had "proudly endorsed" Jones.
But Brady PAC was far from proud of Jones just a month ago.
Brady PAC, which touts its "determination to build a safer America," blasted Jones following revelations that he sent text messages in 2022 wishing to put "two bullets in the head" of Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert (R.). Jones also wished death upon Gilbert's children, calling them "little fascists."
"Violent rhetoric has no place in our political process. Ever," said Brady PAC, which is named after former Reagan press secretary James Brady, who was shot during an assassination attempt against Reagan in 1981.
At the time, Cam noted that Brady was the only group to denounce Jones and his rhetoric to any degree. Other anti-gun groups just played everything quietly, hoping no one took screenshots--but of course, they did.
Now, Brady is pretending absolutely none of that happened and is being all buddy-buddy with Jones as part of the Democratic wave coming into statewide office
Then again, this is the organization "led" by Kris Brown, who celebrated the fact that the Star Wars show The Acolyte didn't feature guns, just lightsabers--the same weapon that Anakin Skywalker used to slaughter younglings in job lots during Revenge of the Sith--and ultimately made it obvious that she's more than a few fries short of a Happy Meal in the process.
For Brady to try to memory hole their condemnation of Jones' comments and celebrate his win is disgustingly on-brand for the organization.
I gained a smidgeon of respect for Brady for what they said when the Jones comments came to light, especially as every other anti-gun group just pretended the whole thing didn't happen, but they just shattered all of that with this nonsense.
We see what they're doing here.
For all their rhetoric about being non-partisan, all they care about is winning, just like every other group. The decision to hold up Jones with the other Democrats they backed made it obvious that Democrats winning is all that matters to Brady.
Not that I'm surprised, of course. Especially under Brown, they've turned mostly from one of the powers in the anti-gun movement to the organization most easily mocked. Brown is an idiot who trips over her own feet more often than not, but this is an own goal that's impressive even by her idiotic standards.
