The goal of every gun rights group is to restore gun rights in this country. In order to do that, we need to challenge and overturn most, if not all gun control laws currently on the books. That's just a logical progression for anyone who sees the whole "shall not be infringed" thing as more than a polite suggestion.

We're pretty open about it, too.

Yet it seems the folks at Mother Jones were unaware of this. 

Their report starts with the background of an organization called the Constitutional Defense Fund (CDF). It was founded by a former undercover narcotics officer turned pastor. The issue is apparently summed up in the headline that reads, "The Secret Plan to Strike Down US Gun Laws."

Sutherland is much less public about the CDF, which in the half-decade since its rechristening has evolved from spreading the good news to facilitating a far-reaching, multimillion-dollar legal campaign to dismantle America’s gun laws. From 2020 to 2022, the CDF collected $12 million in cash and funneled nearly $10 million to two connected gun rights groups and a DC law firm, Cooper & Kirk, which together have filed at least 21 lawsuits since 2020 that challenged gun restrictions. These lawsuits, aimed at getting an eventual Supreme Court hearing, concern bans on AR-15-style rifles and high-capacity magazines, as well as restrictions on young adults buying and carrying handguns. During its next term, which begins in October, the court will hear one of the suits, a challenge to the government’s ability to check the spread of home-produced, unserialized “ghost guns.”

The CDF paid Cooper & Kirk more than $8 million between 2020 and 2022. The fund also made payments to the Second Amendment Foundation and the Firearms Policy Foundation (an offshoot of the Firearms Policy Coalition), which are the plaintiffs, individually or together, in every one of the 21 lawsuits the operation is behind.

The CDF’s money came via Donors Trust, a pass-through fund founded in 1999 with the aim of “safeguarding the intent of libertarian and conservative” philanthropists who seek to channel their wealth into right-wing causes. The trust has more than $1 billion in assets and is not legally required to identify its donors.

In short: An anonymous funder or funders is bankrolling a legal attack aimed at providing the conservative majority on the Supreme Court an opportunity to wipe out America’s firearms laws. It’s akin to the Christian right’s abortion playbook but for guns.

And?

Look, if it works, I'm all for it. Moreover, absolutely nothing illegal appears to be taking place. Considering the way so many of Mother Jones's average readers will seek to destroy anyone who they disagree with, it's not shocking that donors are using methods to keep their identities a secret. That's what the real problem is here. They can't "name and shame" the donors, and that's somehow deeply offensive, but the thing about free speech--and yes, donating money is a kind of speech--is that it doesn't require one to sign their name for the whole world to see, especially in the cancel culture era.

“It’s about as far from a bottom-up, grassroots operation as possible,” said Adam Skaggs, chief counsel and vice president of Giffords Law Center, who has spent a decade tangling in court with gun rights interests. Skaggs said that in terms of its ambition and scale, the dark money operation is unlike any litigation funding arrangement he’s seen.

Funny how he doesn't say that about his Bloomberg-funded buddies. A massive billionaire donates a pile of money and essentially volunteers to fund them for the rest of his life, if not beyond, and that's fine. Some dude gets a bunch of other dudes to donate money and suddenly it's a huge issue?

And again this is funding litigation, not impacting elections. That's a significant difference because campaign finance laws impact financing campaigns. This is a different, and it doesn't really matter who is funding the litigation anyway. A case lives or dies on the merits of the case, assuming they're competently presented--which, admittedly, money can help with. Throwing money at a legal team won't suddenly change the Constitutional text, precedence, or anything else that really matters in a courtroom.

The motives of many of the players in this drama—gun rights advocates and the conservative lawyers who work for them—are obvious. But Sutherland is more of a mystery. People who have known him for years say they’ve never heard him talk about the Second Amendment or state a position on the gun debate.

And?

Look, there's nothing secret or nefarious about what's happening. I get that people trying to shield their identities may feel nefarious, but since Mother Jones writers usually aren't on the receiving end of having their lives destroyed over WrongThink, they might not be able to understand why good, decent people would opt to hide their activities.

But do groups like this want to overturn gun control? Abso-freaking-lutely. 

They're not remotely secret about it, either. 

What about Sutherland, though? He's never talked about gun rights or talked about the gun debate, apparently. Isn't that weird?

Not really. I suspect the people who would speak to Mother Jones in the first place are people who probably wouldn't discuss the topic with in the first place. Some people aren't really big on political discussions that are really political debates, particularly if they consider the folks to be friends. That's all that it means, most likely.

But so what? People aren't required to share their motives for engaging in politically-motivated activity. If so, what would we learn about the average Mother Jones writer? What about so many others who engage in similar actions for leftist causes?

Yet I want to assure Mother Jones of one thing: There is no secret effort to destroy gun control in this country.

It's a very public effort to do it.