The National Rifle Association (NRA) has spent more than $2 million on an ad targeting gun control-supporting Senator John Tester (D-MT).
Tester’s seat is being challenged by Republican and former SEAL Tim Sheehy.
The 30-second ad claims that Tester has failed to support Americans’ gun rights.
“Where I live, you can’t wait for 911. My family’s safety is in my hands alone,” a female narrator says. “But gun grabbers who’ve never been to Montana let alone out here want to take my rights away. My gun is in my pocket but my Senator is in theirs. Jon Tester failed to protect my right to self-defense and that’s why moms like me can’t wait to fire him in November.”
Chair of the NRA Political Victory Fund, Randy Kozuch, said “gun owners can’t afford to sit on the sidelines.”
“With this seven-figure ad buy, only a portion of our electoral engagement in Montana, we are calling out Jon Tester,” he explained, adding that Tester has “voted to spend taxpayer dollars to promote state-level red flag laws, which are ripe for abuse, and deny gun owners basic due process protections. And he’s voted multiple times to criminalize private firearms transfers while supporting government blacklists.”
Tester’s Senate page claims he is a “strong supporter of the Second Amendment.”
“He has supported bipartisan legislation to keep guns out of the hands of criminals, terrorists, and those found by a judge to be a danger to themselves or others. He believes that we can keep our kids and communities safe without infringing on the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding gun owners. That is why he has also consistently voted against any type of database or registry of gun owners, opposed legislation that would prevent an individual from purchasing or possessing firearms without meaningful due process, and broken with his own party to oppose banning assault weapons.”
According to the NRA, however, Tester has voted “against Donald Trump’s pro-gun Supreme Court Justices Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.” He has also voted in favor of “funding red flag gun confiscation programs, criminalizing private firearm transfers, and government blacklists.”
