“AstroTurf” is a term I’d like to acquaint you with. The Wiki-pedia definition is, “a registered trademark of Textile Management Associates, applied to a particular kind of artificial turf.” “AstroTurf” is phoney grass. “Phoney” as in “not real” and “fake.” AstroTurf is all right for football stadiums where they have trouble growing real grass, but it’s toxic when it comes to gun rights organizations.
“Grass roots” is a term used to describe organizations which grow up naturally from the people, expressing concerns and interests from local and regional groups of people. Many of the concealed carry advocacy groups like The Kentucky Coalition for Concealed Carry (KC3), Ohioans for Concealed Carry, Virginia Citizens Defense League, The Oregon Firearms Federation and others too numerous to mention are legitimate “grass roots” organizations of gun owners who wanted to improve the gun laws in their respective states. They have been enormously effective, and thanks to their efforts, we have some form of citizen concealed carry in 48 out of 50 states of the union.
Now, the gun grabbers became jealous and envious of the the power and effectiveness of the grassroots gun rights organizations, and knowing that they had neither the popular support nor the truth behind them, they set about to create synthetic “grassroots” organizations which had no real popular support or constituency but mimic the look and feel of of the grassroots organizations. The are funded by elitist money pits like the Joyce Foundation. (The complete list of their grants to gun control groups is here.) Their agenda is to confuse and deceive, like the rest of the gun grabbers, to create the impression of vast popular involvement and support, where, in fact, it does did not exist. It is phoney grassroots. Hence the term, “AstroTurf.” Fake grass. Fake grassroots. A lie. (And no, there’s no depth too low for them to sink.)
So what are the “AstroTurf” organizations? Here’s a few:
- The American Hunters & Shooters Association - This group claims to “vigorously defends the constitutional right to keep and bear arms” but supports almost all of the Brady Campaign’s gun control agenda for “sensible gun safety.”
- The Freedom States Alliance - This group is nothing but a website operated by a PR firm out of Chicago, Mark Karlin & Associates, and funded by the Joyce Foundation. They are actually a gun control group (of three or four web wonks in a little office in Chicago.) You can read their agenda and get a partial list of their subsidiary AstroTurfs here.
- The Gun Guys - A really sick and obnoxious website that’s not worth reading unless you’re just wanting to get mad, but it does reveal the tactic. It’s an operation of the “Freedom States Alliance” run by the same Chicago PR firm and funded by the Joyce Foundation.
- Americans for Gun Safety - Fortunately this one has been pretty much “outed” and rendered ineffective. Funded by the billionaire owner of Monster.com, the resume site, they talk that “sensible gun control” bs and largely support the Brady Bunch agenda.
GeorgiaPacking.org has a really excellent page that charts the network of astroturf gun control groups here complete with hyperlinks to their sites. This page gives special attention to the flow of funding from the Joyce Foundation.
I guess we should feel glad and celebrate that our adversaries are reduced to such craven deceptions. They have nothing left to do but mimic our successes and attempt to deceive people into believing that they have a substantial grassroots constituency. Nevertheless, this represents a lot of energy and money being funneled into the disinformation campaign to steal our gun rights. Ignoring it could be hazardous to our health.
For more information see:
The Joyce Foundation from Wikipedia
The Joyce Foundation from Of Arms and The Law
The Joyce Foundation from Discoverthenetworks
[…] Over at Front Sight Press, there’s some info on them. […]