Legal Research

Ex NRA Employee Penetrated Gun Control Groups

By David Badertscher, PLL

Source: Crime and Justice News, August 1, 2008.

'Mary Lou Sapone, a former National Rifle Association employee who has covertly infiltrated citizens groups for private security firms hired by corporations that are targeted by activist campaigns, joined gun-control groups under her maiden name, Mary McFate, reports Mother Jones. Leaders of gun violence prevention organizations say that for years they have been penetrated-at the highest levels-by the NRA or other pro-gun parties. Sapone began posing as a gun control activist in the mid-1990s. "

"McFate's former colleagues note that she was well- positioned for many years to provide the NRA the plans, secrets, and inside gossip of practically the entire gun violence prevention movement. 'She had access to all the legislative strategy for every major issue for years,' says Kristen Rand of the Violence Policy Center.' Sapone/McFate refused to talk to Mother Jones. The magazine asks, but doesn't answer, key questions, including, 'How did she manage to fool everyone for so long? How much money did she earn for being a mole? To whom in the gun lobby did she report? Did her covert effort extend beyond mere intelligence gathering? Did she manage to shape the decisions and actions of anti-gun groups to the gun lobby's liking? And was she the only one?' " 

Mother Jones

Full post as published by New York Supreme Court Criminal Term Library on August 01, 2008 (boomark / email).