SECOND-GENERATION ASTROTURF? RegulateGuns.Org is a website that argues that guns should be regulated as a consumer product. (By which they really mean guns should be regulated out of existence). The contact page indicates that it’s related to the Consumer Federation of America, though it’s not clear whether the site is actually part of CFA or if CFA is just a “supporter” of the site. But the WhoIs entry says that the domain name is registered to the Violence Policy Center.

I couldn’t find any mention of a VPC connection, and entering “violence policy center” into the site’s search engine produced no results, so apparently VPC isn’t mentioned anywhere. And when I entered “regulateguns.org” in the search window on the Consumer Federation of America site, I got no returns. I got the same non-result when I searched the Violence Policy Center’s site.

So who’s actually behind this?

UPDATE: FYI, courtesy of an alert reader, here’s an article on what it would actually mean to treat guns like a common consumer product. Oh, and another reader points out that searching for “VPC” does bring up some links to the Violence Policy Center.