By: Anthony Morelli
The gun control lobby will do anything to bend politicians to their will.
One politician surprised everyone and supported gun control.
But now allegations are growing that there was some shady business happening behind the scenes.
Maine is a state that leans Democrat, but still has a strong culture of gun ownership, and has a Constitutional Carry law on the books.
Even Democrat politicians in Maine typically don’t touch the gun issue, in the name of not making their constituents angry. However, that all changed after the recent shooting in Lewiston.
Now the legislature is voting on a number of gun control bills and trying to crack down.
And gun control lobbying groups are getting involved and trying to sway politicians who traditionally have not been on their side.
One of those politicians, State Sen. Troy Jackson, surprised everyone by coming out in favor of a package of gun control laws that he had opposed in the past.
But then scandal erupted when it came out that his son’s firm had been hired by a gun control group right before he changed his position on the gun issue.
According to The Maine Wire, “Senate President Troy Jackson (D-Aroostook) has told Democratic activists that he will support gun control legislation he has previously voted against, a flip that comes only after the Maine Gun Safety Coalition hired his son and his former chief of staff to lobby for Second Amendment restrictions.
“The payments from Maine Gun Safety Coalition to the Resurgam Group were first reported this weekend by Billy Kobin of the Bangor Daily News.”
His flip on gun control was especially surprising when considering the fact that Jackson represents Aroostook County, the farthest north county in Maine.
It is extremely remote and has many conservative residents who own guns. It is not exactly an urban, liberal district.
The article continues, “At a Jan. 20 meeting of Food and Medicine, the 501(c)4 group that employs the elder Jackson, he told left-wing activists that he was going to support some of the very gun control policies that he had opposed during his 20-year career in state politics.”
Here is what Jackson had to say: “So, you know, there’s definitely legislation that’s been, either introduced in the past, legislation that I voted against, time and time again, that we’ll deal with this session to try and make sure that, or try and make an attempt to make it so something like that won’t happen again.”
Jackson had to know that his son’s connection to the gun control issue would come out after he made comments like this.
It raises questions about how much his son’s relationship with a gun control lobbying group influenced his change of position on the issue.
Gun owners have every right to be furious after what Sen. Troy Jackson did, and it may be time for the ones who live in his district to reconsider his representation of them.
After all, it’s clear that their interests are not the ones he is representing.