Everytown for Gun Safety and its grassroots network, Moms Demand Action, vowed Thursday to take on the National Rifle Association (NRA) at the ballot box following the announcement of a lawsuit from the New York attorney general seeking to dissolve the gun rights group.
“The NRA has become so politically toxic in the last year … that sometimes it’s hard to remember the true destructive nature of the organization,” Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action, told reporters on a press call. “Come November, we’re going to make sure they’re out of power, too.”
Watts said that Everytown and Moms Demand Action plan to outspend, outwork and outvote the NRA and its favored candidates. Everytown is co-founded by former Democratic presidential contender and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
“By the end of this case, there might not be anything left to dissolve,” she said about the lawsuit.
The NRA spent $36 million backing President Trump in the 2016 cycle.
The pro-gun rights lobbying group has seen a great deal of internal turmoil recently, including a membership drop and a contentious leadership fight.
“Gun safety is no longer the third rail of American politics. The NRA is,” said John Feinblatt, president of Everytown for Gun Safety. “Regardless of the outcome, the once mighty NRA is already hobbled.”
Feinblatt said that rather than buying political ads this cycle, “they’re going to be paying legal bills.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James’s (D) lawsuit alleges that the NRA violated state law governing nonprofit organizations, contributing to a loss of more $64 million over three years.
The civil suit alleges that the NRA and four of its top officials, including Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre, diverted millions of dollars away from its charitable mission and instituted “a culture of self-dealing, mismanagement and negligent oversight.”
Trump, a vocal NRA defender, on Thursday suggested in response to the lawsuit that the NRA relocate to Texas, calling the lawsuit a “very terrible thing.”
The organization is currently headquartered in Fairfax, Va., but is chartered as a nonprofit in New York state.