George Soros has made an immense fortune manipulating international stock and currency markets. Over the past few years the Hungarian-born billionaire has used that fortune to become a preeminent funding source for global gun control. Directly and through his organization Open Society Institute (OSI), he has funneled cash to various anti-gun groups, such as the Tides Foundation, the HELP Network and SAFE Colorado. He and seven rich friends founded their own political committee--Campaign for a Progressive Future--and spent $2 million on political activities in 2000, including providing the prime financial backing for the Million Mom March. OSI has supported UN efforts to create international gun control regulations and has singled out the United States for failing to go along with the international gun-prohibitionists.

Soros has worked to combine with other wealthy activists and foundations to provide funding for numerous anti-gun projects. Soros and the Irene Diamond Foundation made equal $5 million contributions to form the Funders` Collaborative for Gun Violence Prevention. This organization has provided funding to the anti-gun Harvard Injury Control Center and has helped bankroll reckless lawsuits designed to cripple the firearms industry. OSI and the Funders` Collaborative (using money largely supplied by Soros) was the primary funding source for the plaintiffs in Hamilton v. Accu-tek and in NAACP v. ACUSPORT Inc. OSI provided $300,000 to the plaintiffs` lawyers in the Hamilton case and provided a grant identified as between $100,000 and $499,000 in the NAACP case.

When Soros and OSI decided to start spending great sums of money on anti-gun research and advocacy, they went in search of an experienced activist to guide the effort. Soros came up with Rebecca Peters, a central figure in disarming the people of Australia, and a leader in the effort to ban all handguns and most long guns. Under Peters` direction, OSI soon released "Gun Control in The United States." This strikingly simplistic evaluation of gun laws in the 50 states purposefully ignored federal firearms laws and arbitrarily awarded various point values to each state that has imposed gun control restrictions favored by the group.

Such restrictions include, for example, compact handgun prohibitions, gun registration and gun owner licensing, various gun sale regulations and gun storage requirements. States that do not allow local jurisdictions to impose gun laws more restrictive than state law are penalized in the Society`s point system. States that prohibit the filing of junk lawsuits against the firearm industry are also penalized, as are states that do not duplicate the federal age requirement for possessing a handgun.

Out of a maximum of 100 points possible in OSI`s point system, only seven states received scores above 30%. The other 43 states, OSI claims, "lack even `basic gun control laws` [and therefore] fall below minimum standards for public safety." Twenty-three of the supposedly sub-standard states got scores of zero or below. You would never know this is a country with more than 20,000 gun laws.

The plain truth, of course, is that the "particular regulatory measures" we know as "gun control" are absolute failures in the war on crime. Case in point: the average violent crime rate of the seven states whose gun laws OSI believes best is 21% higher than the average rate for the 43 states OSI believes are "below minimum standards for public safety." Of the 10 states that have the lowest violent crime rates in America, eight received scores of zero or below, and the Society`s favorite state, Massachusetts, has a violent crime rate five times higher than its least favorite state, Maine.

In addition to his efforts to undermine the Second Amendment rights of Americans, Soros has spent over two decades trying to influence the political and social development in various parts of the world, particularly the nations of the former Soviet bloc. In the United States, Soros has given many millions of dollars to finance pro-marijuana initiative campaigns. He has been called "the Daddy Warbucks of drug legalization," by former Democratic Cabinet Member Joseph Califano.

Soros is now using his fortune to not only to unseat President George Bush, but also to challenge the United States` role in the world. The aging billionaire has decided to use his fortune to remake America as he thinks it should be. And he is spending loads of cash to do it. Soros has obscenely likened President Bush to Hitler and his administration to Nazi Germany and has described the United States as "a danger to the world." To promote such slanders, he has committed $5 million to the strongly anti-Bush group MoveOn, and has promised $10 million to a new liberal activist group America Coming Together (ACT). These groups are focused not only on defeating George Bush in 2004, but on achieving vast social change in America which would include the dismantling of Second Amendment rights. He has declared that he intends to raise and spend $75 million dollars to oust Bush and force a "regime change" in America.

Soros is intent on making American sovereignty subject to international will. He calls America`s actions to protect its citizens from terrorism as "supremacist." In its place he would have the U.S. adopt the "Soros doctrine." Under the Soros doctrine, U.S. interests would be replaced by international "collective action." His support for international gun bans fits hand in glove with his vision of an America subservient to an international collective will.

With his vast fortune to bankroll his activities, it is clear that Soros wants not only to be the king-maker, but to set American policies to his liking in a nation remade to suit his extremist vision.

Soros` decision to spend tens of millions of dollars to influence the 2004 election flies in the face of his earlier crusades against the use of "soft" money in political campaigns. Over the past seven years, Soros has donated close to $7 million dollars to efforts to reform campaign finance laws. Now he is spending tens of millions in "soft" money political ads to influence the 2004 election. This hypocrisy has drawn the condemnation not only of political foes, but of former ally Fred Werthiemer, the former Common Cause director, who now says "we`ll be watch-dogging him closely."

Soros sees the defeat of George Bush as "a matter of life and death," and is as dedicated to that goal as he has been to eliminating our Second Amendment rights. He has already spent $15.5 million in this new quest and has stated "If necessary, I would give more money."