Media Ignore Soros’ Lobbying for Gun Control in 2019

September 4th, 2019 1:38 PM

Liberal billionaire George Soros has already spent $8,520,000 on lobbying this year, including cash for a gun-control effort, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

Through his Open Society Policy Center Soros’ money helped advocate the repeal of the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) that protects gun companies from lawsuits related to crimes committed with firearms. Liberal media outlets ABC, CBS, NBC, The Washington Post and The New York Times all ignored Soros’ 2019 lobbying between Jan. 1, 2019, and Sept. 3, 2019, according to a Nexis search.

Free Beacon reported on Sept. 3, that PLCAA protects gun companies if they are sued "for the harm solely caused by the criminal or unlawful misuse of firearm products or ammunition products by others when the product functioned as designed and intended." Repealing it would leave gun companies open to “frivolous lawsuits,” which could “bankrupt” the entire industry, Free Beacon said.

The PLCAA does not shield gun manufacturers from all lawsuits, as The Blaze reported Sept. 3. Gunmakers can still be held liable for “defective manufacturing.”

Soros’ $5.92 million lobbyings in the second quarter of 2019 included support for Rep. Adam Schiff’s (D-CA)“The Equal Access to Justice for Victims of Gun Violence Act,” which seeks to repeal PLCAA and "provide for the discoverability and admissibility of gun trace information in civil proceedings."

The fact that every Democratic candidate is supporting repeal of the PLCAA flies in the face of the liberal media’s whining about politicians being influenced by “special interests” and “lobbyists.”

In the first quarter, Soros’ spent $2.6 million lobbying on several issues including the repeal of the PLCAA, as well as international and military issues.

Not only did The Washington Post fail to report Soros’s lobbying on gun control (or any other issue in 2019), it attacked the National Rifle Association for criticizing Soros about guns in the past. On April 26, 2019, the Post complained that in the early 2000s the NRA “was warning its members about Soros’s supposed globalist anti-gun agenda.”

The Trace, which is funded by fellow liberal mega-donor Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety organization, also characterized efforts to tie Soros to the gun-control lobby as “rumors” by the NRA to turn the mogul into a “useful villain” in 2018. The article was headlined “George Soros is Not the Gun Grabber the NRA Says He Is.”

As of September 2019, OpenSecrets listed Soros as the second-highest donor to outside spending groups for 2019 behind struggling Democratic presidential candidate Tom Steyer. Soros had already donated more than $6.2 million to leftwing PACs, with the majority of it going to his newly-minted liberal super PAC Democracy PAC.

OpenSecrets also listed Soros as the seventh-highest individual contributor for the 2018 election cycle in which he donated more than $20 million to liberal candidates, PACs and causes.