Sen. Susan Collins is very concerned about guns, we learned last week, in an embarrassingly fluffy Politico piece declaring her a "moderate" that "has long been a lonely voice on guns in the GOP." Dig a little deeper, though, and you find little moderation and paper-thin opposition to guns.
Interestingly enough, Collins actually came to the Senate (as a "moderate") with a lot of help from a guy name Dick Dyke, who at the time was the owner of Bushmaster Firearms. The assault weapons manufacturer and his associates donated $14,000 to her 1996 campaign because of her "pro-gun stands—including her support for overturning the ban on certain assault weapons." She owes her seat in the Senate in large part to his money.
But that's not all. His family has donated a total of $20,000 to her campaigns since that first race. This all happened after he gave her career a big boost after she lost a 1994 run for governor. Between that run and her successful Senate bid, Collins was named director of a newly created center at Husson University in Bangor, Maine, the Richard E. Dyke Center for Family Business. That center was created in December, 1994 from a $265,000 donation from none other than Dick Dyke.
Dyke had all that money from the sale of guns. You might remember Bushmaster because it was one of their weapons, a .223-caliber rifle, a civilian version of the military M-16, that the D.C. sniper John Allen Muhammad used on his terrorist rampage. Ten people were murdered by Muhammed and his accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo, and Bushmaster ended up paying out $550,000 in a $2.5 million settlement to the victims' families to settle their claims of negligent distribution of weapons by the Bull’s Eye gun shop in Washington state, where the gun was obtained, and Bushmaster. "Despite audits by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives showing that Bull's Eye had dozens of missing guns, Bushmaster continued to use the shop as a dealer and provided it with as many guns as the owners wanted, the lawsuit alleged."
This is how Collins established her career as a "moderate" and that "lonely voice on guns." Her career was bankrolled in the early days by gun money and since then she's been a pretty reliable vote for Mitch McConnell and the NRA when the chips are down, voting against banning high-capacity magazines and against background checks at gun shows—while voting to loosen license and background checks at shows.
Enough is enough. Please give $1 to help Democrats in each of these crucial Senate races, but especially the one in Maine!