Sen. Jon Tester Airs Ad Touting His Opposition to Anti-Gun-Education Policy He Voted For

Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) aired an ad on Thursday in which the Democrat boasts of his opposition to a Biden administration anti-gun-education policy he helped pass.

The Tester ad claims he “got his Republican colleagues on board to stop Biden’s policy and defend our Second Amendment rights”:

After the Biden administration, through the Department of Education (DOE), interpreted the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA) to bar federal funding for school archery and gun safety programs, Tester sponsored the Defending Hunters’ Education Act. Tester’s bipartisan bill would restore funding for these gun safety programs.

The administration’s BSCA includes a provision that prohibits funds from helping any person with a dangerous weapon or providing “training in the use of a dangerous weapon.”

However, Tester would not have needed to sponsor the Defending Hunters’ Education Act if he had not helped pass the BSCA.

The Montana Democrat wrote an op-ed in September touting the need to rein in the Biden administration’s interpretation of the BSCA in which he said the administration was “misinterpreting” BSCA.

Breitbart News reported:

Even though Tester has introduced bipartisan legislation to undo the effects of the gun control bill he helped pass, it remains uncertain if the bill is likely to pass through Congress. It would require 60 votes in the Senate, and it would require a majority to pass through the House.

Hunting and Second Amendment groups such as the Safari Club International, National Shooting Sports Foundation, International Order of T. Roosevelt, Outdoors Tomorrow Foundation, and the National Rifle Foundation have slammed the Biden rule.

Now, facing reelection and reeling from the effects of his support for a gun control bill, it appears the Montana Democrat seeks to undo the effects of that support for gun control.

Tester wrote in his op-ed in September:

The bottom line is that anyone who has ever lived in rural America would know that shooting sports and hunting are simply part of our Montana way of life. Efforts to strip these school safety courses are just the latest example of folks in Washington not understanding our rural communities, and I’ll do everything in my power to stop them in their tracks.

Tim Sheehy, a Senate Republican who aims to oust Tester, wrote, “I’m sick of the corrupt career politicians–Republicans and Democrats–who run for office after office, go to DC to get rich, and love talking about “fighting for you” while our problems only get worse.

“It’s time for a conservative outsider to kick these frauds out. #RetireTester.”

I’m sick of the corrupt career politicians–Republicans and Democrats–who run for office after office, go to DC to get rich, and love talking about “fighting for you” while our problems only get worse.

It’s time for a conservative outsider to kick these frauds out. #RetireTester pic.twitter.com/mOukDEImQG

— Tim Sheehy (@SheehyforMT) January 4, 2024