Governor Mark Gordon, Secretary of State Ed Buchanan, and Attorney General Bridget Hill are coming after Wyoming Gun Owners with a vengeance, and we need your help immediately.
No, this isn’t a joke.
One year ago, when anti-gun Republican politicians like Senator Michael Von Flatern and Representative Bill Pownall tried to pass FIX-NICS legislation in Cheyenne — only to be soundly defeated by WYGO members — I was warned by insiders that WYGO had better ‘watch its back.’
I’ve heard this type of threat before, having worked in state legislatures in the fight for gun rights all over the country for well over a decade.
Gun grabbers (Republicans or Democrats) hate gun owners who stand together and defeat their gun control agenda, and they love trying to scare gun groups into leaving them alone.
And while that may work with other organizations, the members of Wyoming Gun Owners are some of the most brutally effective advocates for the Second Amendment that I’ve ever had the pleasure of leading — and you don’t even know how to back down!
That’s why, after WYGO defeated every Republican-backed gun control bill last session, we spent all fall exposing the politicians who had been attacking our freedoms.
We did this by unleashing the most aggressive radio ads, digital ads, direct mail, ‘white board’ videos, and mass email alerts that we could possibly produce, all designed to expose the records that Republican gun-grabbers were trying to keep hidden.
The establishment and Wyoming’s Jackson Hole powerbrokers panicked and pulled out all the stops in an effort to save their allies in Cheyenne.
Former Governor Mead attacked pro-gun candidates up and down the ballot, including outright champions like Senator Anthony Bouchard and others.
Jackson Hole billionaires formed multiple PACs, just weeks before the August primary, flooding gun-grabbers with money.
And former U.S. Senators Alan Simpson and Mike Enzi got involved in the effort to save anti-gunners in Cheyenne, endorsing moderates and directly attacking the members and supporters of Wyoming Gun Owners.
In the end, none of it mattered as gun owners across the state stood up and sent a loud message to the gun-grabbers in Cheyenne, when they:
>>> Threw Senator Michael Von Flatern out of the Senate, for being a lead sponsor of FIX-NICS legislation that would enable liberal judges to confiscate your guns before you’ve been convicted of a crime.
And to be clear, the 63.4% to 36.3% defeat was a complete humiliation for Von Flatern, who had been in office for sixteen years!
>>> Defeated Representative Bill Pownall in the House, for being the lead sponsor of FIX-NICS gun control legislation in the lower chamber.
And just like Von Flatern, after WYGO exposed Pownall’s actions in Cheyenne, gun owners crushed him on election day by a jaw-dropping margin of 50.4%-29.6%!
>>> Fired Representative Dan Kirkbride, the House Judiciary Chairman who was actively working to advance FIX-NICS legislation through ‘his’ committee.
Kirkbride, who had been in office for close to a decade, was easily defeated by a margin of 46%-53.7% after WYGO told everyone in his district about his betrayal.
>>> Crushed Representative David Northrup, who was trying to get into the Senate even though freely admitted that he wanted to mandate waiting periods on gun sales in Wyoming!
Even though we spent most of our budget exposing the politicians above, we made the stretch for a devastatingly effective radio ad over the last ten days of the primary election cycle. Northrup gathered just 27.6% of the vote.
The Jackson Hole and Cheyenne power brokers hate us for that, and that’s why they are coming after us right now, demanding that we surrender our donor list or pay hefty fees to the state!
Donate today to help us fight back against this attack!
And I’m only scratching the surface as pro-gun candidates like Sen. Anthony Bouchard, Sen. Tim Salazar, Rep. Dan Laursen, Rep. Bob Wharff, Rep. John Beard and others won hard fought primaries in races where WYGO exposed their opponent’s support for gun control.
The results on election night were nothing short of incredible, and media outlets here in Wyoming and around the country credited the members of Wyoming Gun Owners for the incredible beating that anti-gun Republicans received!
Former United States Senators couldn’t stop us! Former Governors couldn’t stop us! Billionaires in Jackson Hole couldn’t stop us! And the moderates in Cheyenne couldn’t stop us!
So I guess I wasn’t surprised when I learned that a bogus complaint had been filed against Wyoming Gun Owners just weeks after the primary election was over — but I was surprised to hear about it from a reporter BEFORE Wyoming Secretary of State Ed Buchanan notified us!
The complaint alleges that Wyoming Gun Owners is operating as a Political Action Committee (a PAC) by directly endorsing candidates during the 2020 election cycle.
But that’s completely false.
As a 501c4, WYGO is allowed to expose the voting history, public statements, answers to candidates’ surveys on gun rights and anything else we know about where a candidate stands on the Second Amendment, that’s it.
We are not allowed to directly advocate for or against a candidate. That’s why WYGO has never told you or any other gun owner who to vote for. We give you the information that we have — information gun-grabbers would rather stay secret — and you get to decide what to do with it.
WYGO has never crossed that line.
We know it. Governor Gordon knows it. Secretary of State Ed Buchanan knows it. And Attorney General Bridget Hill knows it.
But this complaint has nothing to do with electioneering laws or making sure that WYGO’s paperwork is up to snuff. This is about getting retribution on gun owners like you who CRUSHED gun control and the politicians who supported it last year.
That’s why the complaint, if upheld, would require Wyoming Gun Owners to operate as a PAC and surrender the names of our donors to a bunch of sniveling government bureaucrats in Cheyenne — or face crippling fines and penalties!
This act of political vengeance is an outrageous attempt to silence the First Amendment rights of thousands of Wyomingites who are standing up for their Second Amendment freedoms, and making snowflake politicians mad in the process.
Don’t let them get away with this, make a donation today to help WYGO fight back!
But if the power brokers from Cheyenne to Jackson Hole thought that WYGO was going to just roll over and accept this, they have got another thing coming!
WYGO has already assembled a multi-member team of lawyers from Cheyenne and Washington, D.C. who specialize in the First Amendment and Election Law to ensure that we have the best defense available.
You see, this is about far more than just WYGO and the Second Amendment rights of gun owners in Wyoming.
If Wyoming politicians can muzzle WYGO like this, then they can muzzle any other advocacy organization they want to and use our case as precedent. But if we stop this, that precedent will go the other way, and defend free speech for everyone!
But I am going to need your help to do this.
We have already spent thousands of dollars in legal fees drafting a pair of responses to this complaint, as the Attorney General’s office has not gotten involved.
After the expensive election program we ran last year, and with all that we are spending right now to advance the Second Amendment Preservation Act in Cheyenne, things are going to start to get tight very soon.
I would much rather put all of your donations to our legislative programs in Cheyenne, but Governor Gordon and his bureaucrats have made that impossible.
The Capitol elites hate the fact that the members of Wyoming Gun Owners are a tremendous force for good in Wyoming, and they are determined to use today’s ‘cancel culture’ tactics to silence us as a favor to the ‘good old boys club’ in Cheyenne.
We can’t let them get away with this!
Make an immediate donation to help WYGO fight back!
For Freedom,
Aaron Dorr
Policy Advisor
Wyoming Gun Owners
P.S. The State of Wyoming is trying to force WYGO into surrendering our members names to the state, in a blatant act of retribution against WYGO after our members threw powerful Republican gun-grabbers out of office last year!
We are fighting back with a powerful legal team that only deals with First Amendment cases like this, but the costs are adding up fast.
Thanks for standing up for the 1st and 2nd Amendment!