You Can Take Annie Andrews Out of Everytown, but Can You Take Everytown Out of Annie Andrews? – Bearing Arms

The race for U.S. Senate in South Carolina is closer than Republicans would like, at least based on recent surveys. RealClearPolling’s average has Darline Graham Nordone up by less than three points over Democrat Annie Andrews, which is far too close for comfort for conservatives and Second Amendment supporters. 

Andrews isn’t just your garden-variety Democrat when it comes to our Second Amendment. She’s a former employee of Everytown for Gun Safety and an ardent champion of gun control, even though she’s now trying to downplay her views. 

President Donald Trump highlighted her anti-gun extremism at a recent rally in South Carolina, and Nordone Graham has been making it an issue as well. 

“Andrews has made a living working for a gun control group, hell-bent on gutting the Second Amendment and taking your guns,” Graham told reporters in Columbia.

That’s a serious accusation in South Carolina, where legislators passed the “constitutional carry” law two years ago allowing adults to carry a handgun without a permit.

But Andrews said she respects the Second Amendment; she just wants to protect children.

“I don’t want to take anyone’s guns,” she said after a town hall meeting with voters in rural Fairfield County. It marked the completion of her campaign goal to visit with voters in all 46 counties.

“My platform to address the public health crisis of gun violence does not infringe on the Second Amendment,” Andrews said. “I support the Second Amendment, law-abiding citizens’ rights to own firearms, but I know we need to do something about this public health crisis.”

Her platform calls for universal background checks, “banning weapons of war from our streets,” “safe storage laws that prevent unintentional shootings and youth suicides,” and more funding for community violence prevention and mental health programs.

When Andrews was pressed about what she meant by “banning weapons of war,” she dubiously claimed that she was referring to “military-grade machine guns and weapons of mass destruction”, which she said should “remain limited under existing law.”

If you think that something should “remain” limited, you don’t call for banning them, right? Her explanation makes no sense whatsoever. What’s far more plausible is that Andrews wants to ban AR-15s and other semi-automatic centerfire firearms, which groups like Everytown have routinely described as “weapons of war.”

If Andrews doesn’t support a ban on so-called assault weapons, she should come right out and say so. If she believes her former employer is wrong to describe these commonly-owned firearms as “weapons of war,” she should inform South Carolina voters of that fact. 

Andrews is a doctor, and we expect our doctors to give it to us straight, right? No dissembling, no hemming and hawing. Just cut to the chase. Is that what Andrews is doing? 

Absolutely not. And if she truly believes that her platform doesn’t infringe on the Second Amendment, then she doesn’t understand what the right to keep and bear arms is all about. Universal background check laws require a gun registry to be effective, and registration leads to confiscation. Gun storage mandates can vary in their language, but the extreme versions pushed by Everytown and other gun control groups require all firearms to be kept locked and unloaded when they’re not under the direct control of the owner or authorized user, making it much harder to use them in self-defense. 

The only part of her gun control platform that doesn’t infringe on our Second Amendment rights is her call for more funding for violence prevention and mental health.   

I find it difficult to believe that the voters in South Carolina would elect a gun-banning stooge of Everytown to serve in the Senate. In fact, I suspect Andrews finds it hard to believe too, which is why she and her campaign are doing their utmost to disguise and downplay her extreme positions. 

Reporters covering her campaign should ask Andrews a few simple questions to help cut through her talking points:

• Do you disagree with any gun control policy Everytown for Gun Safety advocates for?
• Everytown has repeatedly described semiautomatic AR-15s as “weapons of war.” Are you saying your former employer is wrong to use that term, or do you still support banning those rifles?
• Can you name a gun control law you believe would violate the Second Amendment?

These aren’t gotcha questions. Based on her past employment and her current campaign rhetoric, they’re important topics that Andrews really needs to address. We’ll see if that happens between now and Election Day, but if you’re a South Carolina gun owner I wouldn’t wait for the media to ask the candidate these questions. I’d be telling every Second Amendment supporter I know about Andrews’s extensive history working to undermine our right to keep and bear arms and the damage she could do if elected to the U.S. Senate. 

Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their extreme gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.

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