It isn’t just Kamala Harris and Cory Booker who have been endorsing Joe Biden this weekend. He has also, according to a report from the Associated Press, picked up the endorsement of one of the nation’s largest gun safety groups.
Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund plans to spend $60 million on electoral activities this cycle the AP says, some of which will go toward trying to elect Biden.
An Everytown spokesman said the group typically airs advertisements and engages in grassroots organizing for the candidates it endorses, though it’s unclear when the group will begin to spend on Biden’s behalf.
They boasts 6 million supporters and more than 375,000 grassroots donors, numbers that could help boost attention and support for Biden’s presidential bid nationwide.
In an interview with AP, John Feinblatt, head of Everytown for Gun Safety, said the group chose Biden because working for gun control is “his past, it’s his present, it’s his future.” Asked if Sanders’ record on gun control factored into the group’s decision, Feinblatt said that the group looks at a candidate’s “total record.”
“You can’t confine yourself to just what somebody says they’ll do in the future. You have to look at what they’ve done in the past,” he said. “Unquestionably, Joe is a person who’s dedicated much of his life to the issue of gun safety.”
During his tenure in the House and the Senate, Bernie Sanders opposed a 1993 gun safety bill known as the Brady Bill and supported bills that would give gun manufacturers immunity from lawsuits. His position on gun control issues has shifted, and he now has a D-minus rating from the National Rifle Association.
But Sanders’ past votes have been frequent fodder for attacks from his opponents, with Biden charging in a recent TV debate, as he stood next to the Vermont senator, that “my friend on my right and others have given gun manufacturers absolute immunity.”
Biden also has run ads highlighting his work on gun control measures, and on Sunday he received the endorsement of another gun control group, the Brady Campaign.
