Gun Rights Supporters:
Sadly, in American gun rights politics, phony gun groups and lying politicians have become the norm, and North Carolina is no exception. Please allow me to tell two cautionary tales that North Carolina gun rights supporters need to hear.
Phony gun groups…
You may have gotten fundraising mail or email from an entity calling itself the “North Carolina Firearms Coalition” (NCFC) which purports to be headquartered in Raleigh. In truth, the UPS Store in the photograph you see is their “office.”
In July, NCFC did predatory fundraising by claiming credit for GRNC’s legislative accomplishments. Now they are reportedly sending surveys to North Carolina candidates – who should be aware that beyond claiming credit for the work of others, this type of charlatan often rakes in money by beating on pro-gun legislators for supposedly not being pro-gun enough.
NCFC was created by Patrick Parsons of Georgia (not North Carolina), where his “Georgia Gun Owners” also reportedly developed a somewhat unsavory reputation, including having as its place of business a UPS Store. (Are you seeing a pattern yet?)
Parsons originally hailed from the “National Association for Gun Rights” (NAGR), which itself developed a reputation for being far more interested in money than gun rights. In fact, NAGR became so notorious that there is even a Facebook page entitled, “The Truth About the National Association for Gun Rights.”
As gun rights supporters gradually discovered the truth about NAGR, the resulting flight of donors reportedly caused it to downsize, with laid off employees trained in NAGR’s predatory fundraising returning to their states to bilk gun owners in an exercise reminiscent of when Jimmy Carter decimated the CIA, forcing spooks to earn a living by fomenting revolution in South America.
Today I called the phone number for NCFC, and guess who I got: Chris Dorr of the infamous Dorr brothers. So notorious are the Dorr brothers, in fact, that they even warrant a website entitled www.dorrbrotherscams.com, featuring links to quite a list of their exploits. (And we won’t even talk about leftist articles “outing” the Dorrs in The Daily Beast and The Trace.)
It seems that Parsons is now working for another one of the Dorr brothers’ schemes, this one calling itself the “American Firearms Association” and that, in turn, the Dorrs are apparently running NCFC.
Oh, and I should mention that Chris Dorr, who answered a Raleigh phone number, reportedly lives in Pennsylvania. His brother Aaron reportedly lives in New York. Given that Parsons hails from Georgia, I have yet to speak to anyone at the “North Carolina” Firearms Coalition who actually lives in North Carolina.
…and lying politicians
Speaking of charlatans, it seems that Pat McCrory is sending fundraising mail claiming that Congressman Ted Budd is a “business partner” of none other than the evil George Soros, which McCrory knows full well is a lie.
Carolina Journal debunked this claim back in October. In truth, Soros invested in a company which itself invested in a company owned by Ted Budd’s father – a company in which Budd was not even an officer, but only a shareholder.
Even more interestingly, the claim was originally made by a shadowy super PAC calling itself the “Carolina Senate Fund” (which actually hails from Virginia), actually two rich power brokers: James “Art” Pope of Variety Wholesalers and Doug Lebda, CEO of Lending Tree, who have so far jointly contributed $350,000 to the effort. Its thirteen (yes, thirteen) donors read like a “Who’s Who” list of R.I.N.O.s.
The plot thickens when you learn that Art Pope has ties to Pat McCrory, specifically that Pope was a co-chair on North Carolina Governor-Elect Pat McCrory’s transition team and served as the state budget director in the McCrory administration.
Super PACs are prohibited by law from coordinating with the candidate who benefits from their expenditures. So does the fact that McCrory is now making the same fallacious claim as Pope suggest that they might be illegally coordinating their hit pieces against Budd? It certainly warrants investigation.
And since McCrory seems to think being a shareholder in a corporation makes you the “business partner” of every investor in the corporation, GRNC calls upon McCrory to release a list of corporations in which he owns stock in order that we may examine who his “business partners” may be.
And since we are talking about Pat McCrory, gun rights supporters should understand that we are still saddled with our Jim Crow-era pistol purchase permit system because of McCrory.
You see, when McCrory was governor, GRNC managed to get an omnibus gun bill through the General Assembly, HB 937, which contained a purchase permit repeal … at least until McCrory threatened to veto the bill if it contained the repeal. After that, then-Speaker Thom Tillis had the purchase permit repeal stripped out in committee and the remainder passed only under considerable pressure from GRNC.
Rather than donating to phony gun groups and lying politicians, may I suggest you donate to the GRNC Political Victory Fund? GRNC is our federally registered political action committee, and is the instrument by which we “throw the bums out” and elect pro-Second Amendment candidates.
And unlike the charlatans of phony gun groups, I don’t earn a dime for my work on behalf of gun rights. GRNC is an all-volunteer organization. We might not put out slick, high-dollar websites, but I guarantee we will put your money to more efficient, effective use in defending your rights than any other group.
Armatissimi e liberissimi,
President, Grass Roots North Carolina
Executive Director, Rights Watch International
Radio host, Guns, Politics and Freedom
Paid for by Grass Roots North Carolina Political Victory Fund. Not authorized by any candidate or candidate committee