By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Less than 24 hours after news reports at TheGunMag.com and Ammoland News revealed the June endorsement by Everytown for Gun Safety of Virginia Democrat candidate Jay Jones, who is now under fire for 2022 text messages in which he advocated for the shooting of a political rival in the state assembly, that endorsement has vanished from the Everytown website.
Clicking on the link included by TGM and Ammoland in their reports results in a message “Page Not Found.” The June announcement also contained an endorsement for Virginia State Sen. Ghazala Hashmi, the latter for the office of lieutenant governor.
Back in 2022, Jones traded text messages with Republican Delegate Carrie Coyner in which he wrote that then-Republican state House Speaker Todd Gilbert deserved “two bullets to the head.” Jones also suggested that Gilbert’s two children should die. He has issued a statement claiming to be “embarrassed, ashamed, and sorry” for his comments.
However, Jones has not quit the AG’s race as many people have suggested, nor has Everytown apparently retracted its endorsement, or recovered a reported $200,000 campaign contribution made to Jones’ election campaign in August., reported by the Washington Free Beacon. The June 26 endorsement message has disappeared, almost as if Everytown thinks “put of sight, out of mind.”
But it hasn’t vanished entirely, thanks to many people such as Rob Romano who saved it and circulated on social media.
This new development is being portrayed by Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, in a news release Wednesday as damage control.
“All that appears to have happened,” Gottlieb said, “is that the billionaire-backed organization is trying to hide their support of Jones from public view after we reported it in our statement Tuesday.”
Gottlieb believes CCRKBA’s inclusion of the link to Everytown’s June endorsement in its scathing news release Tuesday, as well as its inclusion in TheGunMag and Everytown stories led the billionaire-backed gun prohibition lobbying group to act fast.
“Once their hypocrisy was exposed,” Gottlieb said, “Everytown obviously scrambled to erase the evidence…Still Everytown’s embarrassing exposure is out there for all to see, including the fact that the organization, which is supported by anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg and other wealthy elitists, gave Jones a big check to help buy the election for the next Virginia attorney general.”
The beleaguered Jones is getting vocal support from other Democrats, who apparently think this controversy will blow over by election day next month.
“Once again,” Gottlieb observed, “the Democrat double-standard is being applied to the Jones controversy, and Everytown’s endorsement still hasn’t been withdrawn. It’s just been hidden from view. If these people didn’t live by the double-standard, they would have no standards at all, and now everybody knows it.”
