Gabrielle Giffords and Mark Kelly Want to Be the Anti-NRA

With the 2014 election cycle fast approaching, Gabrielle Giffords and Mark Kelly are raising money they can spend supporting gun control in their self-appointed role as the anti-NRA.

As Breitbart News reported on October 12th, Giffords and her husband “would like to spend in 2014 what the NRA spent in 2012.”

They plan to raise these funds through the auspices of their gun control group Americans for Responsible Solutions. The money will then be spent countering the NRA in congressional districts where pro-gun control candidates are running. 

Their goal is to affect change in Congress sufficient to secure passage of the expanded background checks that failed to pass earlier this year. 

Yet ironically–as Breitbart News first reported months ago–the background check requirements we already have in place proved strong enough to prevent Kelly from buying a semi-automatic pistol in February and halted his purchase of an AR-15 in March.

In February, Kelly flashed a Texas ID instead of an Arizona ID when he went into Diamondback Police Supply, preventing the store from selling him a handgun. In March, after Kelly spent weeks telling the media he was buying an AR-15 so he could give it away, Diamondback Policy Supply owner Douglas MacKinlay halted the purchase because he did not think Kelly could pass question 11a on the NICS background check documentation.

The NRA’s membership hit 5 million in May of this year.

Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins.