“As someone who served in the Trump White House, I witnessed the destruction & chaos firsthand,” Olivia Troye charges in a pinned post on X. “A second Trump term will bring more turmoil.
“As a lifelong Republican, I may not agree with Kamala Harris on everything, but I trust her to protect our freedoms, uphold the rule of law & provide steady leadership on the world stage,” Troye continues. “That’s why I’m voting for Kamala Harris,” Troye claims, adding a “#RepublicansforHarris” hashtag.
As someone who served in the Trump White House, I witnessed the destruction & chaos firsthand. A second Trump term will bring more turmoil. As a lifelong Republican, I may not agree with Kamala Harris on everything, but I trust her to protect our freedoms, uphold the rule of law…
— Olivia of Troye (@OliviaTroye) August 4, 2024
How she can make any of those claims with a straight face would be a mystery if it wasn’t already abundantly clear that everything she represents is based on deception. Case in point is her group’s very name.
“The California-based nonprofit 97Percent took its name from a debunked Quinnipiac poll that claimed 97% of Americans supported mandatory background checks,” Lee Williams wrote in a Second Amendment Foundation Investigative Journalism Project special report. “97Percent says it focuses on policies that both gun owners and non-gun owners support.”
What it says it does and what it does are two very different things. And it’s not like the idea for elites (in this case, “Tech founder, social entrepreneur and philanthropist” Adam Miller) to divide and conquer with fake grassroots groups is a new one, as this correspondent reported in a 2021 Firearms News exposé:
“We’ve seen it all before, Astroturf groups funded by elites that ostensibly spoke for ‘reasonable’ gun owners. 15-plus years ago, it was the American Hunters and Shooters Association, touted by idiotic “sporting use” type “gun writers” as representing “the middle ground.” What they didn’t tell their readers was that AHSA was bankrolled by Boston real estate developer John Rosenthal, founder of “Stop Handgun Violence,” … Their Board of Directors included honchos from Crime Guns Solutions, ex-BATF careerists who worked to give ammo to the gun maker lawsuits… AHSA had ties with a Democrat consulting group, DCS, whose clients included Nancy Pelosi and John Conyers. And their executive director was the aforementioned NRA lawyer Robert Ricker, who went from accusing those suing gun manufacturers to being in it for the money to helping sue gun makers.”
As circumstantial evidence that 97Percent is also a Potemkin Village funded by hidden hands that’s been designed to attract media amplification and create the illusion of widespread public support, its social media followings offer a clue. For a group that’s been around for years and enjoyed publicity puff pieces presented as “news” by major players like The Washington Post, as well as slick national advertising campaigns, it’s hardly unreasonable to expect they’d have attracted more than the 12.8K X and 10K Facebook followers they’ve amassed to date—with no indication as to how many of those are gun owners motivated by finding common ground solutions, as opposed to just Democrats.
But the deceptive campaign to look bigger than they are and present themselves as relevant to gun owners has continued, as documented by this correspondent in a series of follow-up articles on AmmoLand Shooting Sports News. The reports explored:
- How the 97Percent “Policy Roadmap” was just a ploy to advance citizen disarmament.
- How with four intolerable infringements the group was promoting under the guise of “commonsense gun safety.”
- How despite the spin about gun owner support, the group was bringing no one together.
- How a deceptive “petition” falsely claimed gun owner support.
There’s more weasel wording in 97Percent’s “Mission Statement” from its Candid/Guidestar profile, accompanying its IRS Forms 990:
TO REDUCE GUN VIOLENCE BY RAISING AWARENESS ABOUT GUN SAFETY AND GIVING VOICE TO THE VAST MAJORITY OF AMERICANS WHO SUPPORT PRAGMATIC APPROACHES TO REDUCING GUN-RELATED DEATHS IN AN OBJECTIVE AND NON-PARTISAN MANNER THROUGH VARIOUS JOINT VENTURES, ADVERTISEMENT CAMPAIGNS, SOCIAL MEDIA, AND OTHER MEDIUMS OF COMMUNICATION.
That’s a lot of horse offal to pitchfork through as there’s nothing “pragmatic” about swindling Americans out of their rights. The phony proposals that won’t do a thing to “reduce gun-related deaths” but will make the “law-abiding” more vulnerable and less free. But that’s not the biggest bit of misdirection. Saying they are “objective and non-partisan” is the biggest pile.
Sure, they have their share of Vichycons, ex-Pence aide Troye being a prime example. Not only did she endorse Joe Biden and cut ads for Republicans Against Trump before she backed Harris (after announcing serving in the Trump administration was the “honor of her life”), but White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany “dismissed [her] as a coward” describing her claims as “fabricated smears and flat-out lies,” and Retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, a national security advisor to Pence, said he fired her for cause and escorted her from the premises.
Betrayals by GOP turncoats is hardly new. AmmoLand has reported in detail on such destructive and hateful desertions before, including how subversive groups like the Lincoln Project and Defending Democracy Together are working to hand over control to Democrats, with everything that means for the right to keep and bear arms and for the Republic.
97Percent is cut from the same cloth, and it shouldn’t go unnoticed that its “advisory board” includes former NRA lobbyist Abra Belke. Gun owners have seen that before, too, notably including CCRKBA “Gun Rights Defender of the Month” Robert Ricker going to the dark side, Richard Feldman’s Ricochet: Confessions of a Gun Lobbyist, and more recently, Giffords darling, candidate for Montana governor, and former gun industry executive Ryan Busse.
It can’t go unsaid that by going full Tim Walz and promoting Kamala Harris for president, every one of these people, including former “stalwarts” like Gun Rights Policy Conference-attending Joe Walsh, former NRA endorsees Adam Kinzinger and Joe Scarborough and others, are helping to bring about the Democrat agendas on guns and on setting 30M+ illegal aliens on the “pathway to citizenship.”
Read what Democrats want to do about guns. And that’s just what they’ll admit for now.
Then look at Kamala’s record, and her threat to impose infringements via “executive actions.”
“Bipartisan” 97Percent and “Republican” Olivia Troye say, “That’s the common ground we build on.” It could also be the common ground those who demand surrender (or else) bury those who defy them in.
It’s fair to ask why some gun “influencers,” by appearing in the group’s panels, are in effect, legitimizing 97Percent with their followers — and will continue to do so unless they cut all ties and tell us why.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
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