The anti-gun nonprofit 97Percent has quietly reemerged after mendacity low since getting caught plagiarizing images of aggressive feminine shooters to falsely painting themselves as gun-owner pleasant.
The group has undergone vital management modifications. Former government director Elizabeth Troye—a onetime senior advisor to Vice President Mike Pence—has been faraway from the web site completely.
Taking her place is Christopher Carita, a former Fort Lauderdale police officer who was denied a incapacity pension simply final yr. The Police and Firefighter Pension Board rejected his utility by a 4-3 vote, with the bulk unconvinced that Carita’s claimed PTSD was “service-connected, everlasting, and complete.”
Carita’s Crimson Flag Agenda
Carita’s appointment seems designed primarily to advertise his present work: instructing legislation enforcement companies about “purple flag” legal guidelines, which he rebrands as Excessive Threat Safety Orders (ERPOs). He’s a vocal ERPO advocate regardless of these legal guidelines current in solely 21 states.
Past pushing Carita’s courses and workshops, the 97Percent web site stays largely unchanged.
The 97Percent Deception
The group takes its title from a totally debunked Quinnipiac ballot claiming 97% of Individuals help necessary background checks. They dismiss the remaining 3 p.c as “loud voices who’ve crowded out dialog and prevented collaboration between gun homeowners and non-gun homeowners.”
97Percent has by no means acknowledged the well-documented issues with polling gun homeowners—notably our reluctance to inform strangers over the telephone that we personal firearms. As an alternative, they declare to deal with “frequent floor” insurance policies supported by each gun homeowners and non-gun homeowners alike.
The truth tells a distinct story. Analysis reveals 97Percent is solely one other anti-gun group run by hardline gun management advocates.
97Percent’s Anti-Gun File
The group has advocated for:
“Assault weapon” bans
Customary-capacity journal bans
Bump inventory bans
Expanded purple flag legal guidelines
Permits to hold firearms
Permits to buy firearms
Permits to own firearms
Stripping Second Modification rights for “violent misdemeanor” convictions
Obligatory storage legal guidelines (resulting in warrantless residence inspections)
Obligatory background checks (with out acknowledging this creates a de facto nationwide gun registry)
97Percent has additionally claimed the Second Modification is “overprotected,” that semi-automatic rifles are “weapons of struggle,” that “speedy hearth weapons” serve no looking or self-defense goal (with out defining the time period), and that constitutional carry will increase murder charges.
Their advisory board features a former Brady Marketing campaign president and different distinguished gun management activists.
Carita’s Claims Don’t Add Up
Carita’s bio states he has “six years of expertise in Menace Response and Excessive Threat Safety Order Implementation, and 10 years in Legal Investigations.” He earned a Grasp of Public Well being targeted on violence prevention at Johns Hopkins and advises the Nationwide ERPO Middle.
In coaching movies, Carita claims 97Percent has a “robust deal with bringing gun homeowners into coverage discussions.”
But he ignored a number of telephone calls, texts, and emails; apparently, at the least one gun proprietor isn’t welcome in these discussions. The web site’s “contact us” and “media inquiries” buttons are each disabled.
“Most gun homeowners agree ERPOs are good,” Carita stated in a single video. “An ERPO is a priceless device—a courtroom order that stops somebody from possessing or buying firearms.”
That’s false. Most gun homeowners view ERPOs as unconstitutional firearm confiscation schemes. Discovering a gun proprietor who really believes “ERPOs are good” can be a problem.
Carita has described ERPOs as shifting legislation enforcement “from pure enforcement to prevention.”
He’s already revealed a number of anti-gun opinion items picked up by mainstream media. Final yr, he wrote that Florida’s open carry ruling “put Florida legislation enforcement in a troublesome spot.”
His Florida Threat Safety Order working group on LinkedIn presently has 9 members—together with himself.
A Board of Gun Management Activists
Anybody questioning whether or not 97Percent is anti-gun want solely look at their board of administrators.
Richard Aborn served as president of each the Middle to Forestall Handgun Violence and Handgun Management Inc. (now the Brady Marketing campaign). His bio boasts he was “a principal strategist behind the passing of the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act in addition to the Federal Assault Weapons Ban.”
Board members John Goodwin and Abra Belke are former NRA federal lobbyists who turned in opposition to the group. Goodwin has grow to be a go-to anti-gun supply for legacy media.
Based on a Nationwide Capturing Sports activities Basis official, board members Congressmen Steve Israel and Seth Moulton “by no means stood to guard Second Modification rights. Simply the other.”
Board member Ketch Secor, founding father of Outdated Crow Medication Present, penned a New York Occasions essay titled “Nation Music Can Lead America Out of its Obsession with Weapons,” calling for nation artists to “use their platforms to talk candidly to their conservative audiences.”
Michael Put on, who dealt with spiritual outreach for Obama’s reelection marketing campaign, is vocally anti-gun.
Mark McKinnon tweeted after Texas handed constitutional carry in 2021: “It’s not The Onion. The Texas Home of Representatives simply handed a laws that enables individuals to hold weapons WITHOUT a allow/license. So, they assume it must be simpler to hold a gun and tougher to vote.”
In 2022, McKinnon co-authored a Hill op-ed claiming gun homeowners really need extra gun management.
The Backside Line
97Percent won’t ever have real conversations with gun homeowners whereas advocating for “assault weapon” bans, journal restrictions, bump inventory bans, expanded purple flag legal guidelines, necessary permits, storage legal guidelines, and expanded background checks.
Below Carita or anybody else, 97Percent stays a second-tier gun management group masquerading as one thing else.
Larry Keane, senior vice chairman and normal counsel for the Nationwide Capturing Sports activities Basis, summed it up: “This 97Percent group is nothing however a Trojan Horse pretending to be one thing apart from what it’s. It’s a gun management group backed by gun management cash, pretending to be one thing impartial, similar to a gun proprietor group. However as now we have identified up to now, they haven’t ever recognized a single piece of gun-control laws they really feel must be repealed. They solely need extra gun management. This individual is an ERPO champion, none of which have any due course of. They’re fooling no person. It’s simply an try and drive a wedge between gun homeowners and the NRA and the Second Modification Basis, who really characterize the pursuits of gun homeowners.”
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