Consumer Rights Wiki

User:Louis/Everytown for Gun Safety and the 3D printer blocking mandates

< User:Louis
Revision as of 06:20, 3 June 2026 by Louis (talk | contribs) (new userspace essay: who funds and runs everytown, the group behind the 3d-printer blocking mandates. sourced to 990s, fec filings, statute, and named reporting. unconfirmed draft, opinion clearly marked.)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)

On February 12, 2026, a lawyer for Everytown for Gun Safety asked two New York budget committees to require that every 3D printer sold in the state be built to refuse any file "designed to produce firearms, their parts, and illegal accessories."[1] Three months later that requirement was law, signed into the state budget on May 27, 2026.[2] It is the New York 3D printer blocking technology mandate, and it is the first law in the country to put a firearm-file filter inside a consumer's own printer.

Everytown describes itself as "a national coalition of more than 11 million people" and a "grassroots" movement.[3] Its own federal tax filings describe an organization with a narrower base. In 2024 its 501(c)(4) reported $55,448,288 in contributions on a single line of its return, and on the public copy of that return every contributor's name and dollar amount is blacked out.[4][5] The board that governs it is chaired by a man who runs Michael Bloomberg's super PAC, and its books are kept by Michael Bloomberg's longtime accountants.[4][6][7]

This essay is about who is behind the printer mandates, drawn entirely from public records. The case that the mandates cannot technically work lives in three companion pages and I will not repeat it here: the New York 3D printer blocking technology mandate, User:Louis/3D-printed firearms and the technical basis for printer mandates, and User:Louis/3D printer firearm-blocking mandates and geometric false positives. What follows is the money and the people.

The money

edit

Everytown is not one organization. It is a family of them. The two that file public tax returns are a 501(c)(4), the Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund (EIN 20-8802884), which lobbies and electioneers, and a 501(c)(3), the Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund (EIN 26-1598353), which does education, research, and litigation.[4][8] The political money runs through a federal super PAC, the Everytown for Gun Safety Victory Fund (FEC C00688655), and two other section 527 committees the Action Fund controls.[9] Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action are not separate organizations at all; they are volunteer programs housed inside these entities.[8]

A contribution base the public cannot see

edit

Start with the figure a reader can check and then cannot. In its 2024 return the Action Fund placed its entire $55,448,288 in contributions on Form 990 Part VIII line 1f, the catch-all "all other contributions" line, reporting nothing from membership dues, government grants, or related organizations.[4] On the public-inspection copy of that return, the Schedule B that would itemize those gifts shows every contributor entry as "RESTRICTED," blacking out the names and the amounts alike.[5] The pattern is not new: in fiscal year 2019 the same fund reported $80,682,875 in contributions, again entirely on that one line, again undisclosed.[10] One hundred percent of the money that pays for this organization's lobbying is, on the public record, from sources the public is not permitted to identify.

The redaction is lawful and routine. Federal law keeps contributor names off the public-inspection copy of a tax-exempt group's return that is neither a private foundation nor a political committee, so the names sit on the version filed with the IRS but not on the version the public can read.[11] The point here is not that Everytown broke a rule. It is that a citizen who wants to know who paid for a law reaching into their own printer is told, by the only filing the law makes public, that they may not know.

The charitable Support Fund is a half-step more transparent and ends in the same place. It passes the IRS public-support test comfortably, reporting a public-support percentage of 89.260% for 2024, so on paper it is broadly funded.[12] Yet 100% of its 2024 contributions, $35,801,796, sit on that same line 1f, and its Schedule B names are redacted under the same law.[8] The one concentration signal it does disclose, on Schedule A, is that $16,323,996 of its support came from donors who each gave more than two percent of its five-year base.[12]

Michael Bloomberg, the named funder

edit

Because the target's own donor list is sealed, the way to name a funder is to read the funder's filing instead. Michael Bloomberg gives through the Bloomberg Family Foundation (EIN 20-5602483), a private foundation that reported $11.8 billion in assets for 2023 and files a Form 990-PF that names every grant it pays.[13] Its Part XV lists a grant of $5,200,000 to the Everytown Support Fund in 2016 and a grant of $5,000,000 in 2017, each marked for "general operations."[14][15]

On the political side the FEC names what the 990 cannot. The Everytown Victory Fund's federal filings record a $1,300,000 contribution from Michael R. Bloomberg of New York on October 9, 2020, and $12,000,000 from Connie and Steve Ballmer, the principals of the Ballmer Group: $7,000,000 in April 2020, $3,500,000 in April 2021, and $1,500,000 in May 2022.[16] The Action Fund also feeds the super PAC directly, reporting transfers to the Victory Fund of $5,500,000 in 2024, $7,000,000 in 2023, and $6,500,000 in 2022.[9]

Everytown has never hidden Bloomberg's role; it has advertised it. Its own launch announcement on April 16, 2014 said Bloomberg, then titled "Chair of Everytown for Gun Safety," "plans to spend at least $50 million this year to reduce gun violence through Everytown's educational and advocacy efforts and through personal expenditures."[17] The Guardian reported the same $50 million figure the same day.[18] Six years later, the founder of Moms Demand Action, Shannon Watts, told the Washington Post that Bloomberg had contributed "between a quarter and a third of Everytown's budget in recent years."[19]

What the filings do not show against the organization

edit

Two facts cut the other way, and an honest reading keeps them. First, the president, John Feinblatt, takes nothing. On the 2024 returns of both the Action Fund and the Support Fund he is listed as President at fifteen hours a week with $0 in every compensation column, and he signs the Action Fund return as President.[4][8] The best-paid person on either entity is not an officer; it is Charles Kelly, the Action Fund's political-affairs senior vice president, at $455,831 in 2024, with the Support Fund's litigation chief Eric Tirschwell next at $409,281, and no bonus or incentive pay reported for anyone.[20][21] Second, the spending ratios are good: the Action Fund put 76.32% of its 2024 expenses into program work and the Support Fund 82.07%, both above the level charity raters flag.[4][8] If you came looking for looted salaries or a fundraising racket, the filings do not give you one.

The board

edit

The more telling record is who governs the money. Read the Part VII officer-and-director lists of the two entities against the public record of Michael Bloomberg's organizations, and eight of the people running Everytown turn out to be Bloomberg's own current or former principals.

  • John Feinblatt, President of both entities, was chief advisor for policy and strategic planning to Mayor Bloomberg and the city's criminal justice coordinator.[8][22]
  • Howard Wolfson, who became Chairperson of the Action Fund on May 21, 2024, leads an education program at Bloomberg Philanthropies and runs Michael Bloomberg's super PAC; he was a Bloomberg deputy mayor.[4][6]
  • Richard K. DeScherer, the Action Fund chairman Wolfson replaced, was the chief legal officer of Bloomberg LP and a member of Bloomberg's board of directors; his Everytown seat ended on March 23, 2024.[4][23][24]
  • Dennis Walcott, a director of both entities, was Bloomberg's schools chancellor and deputy mayor for education.[8][25]
  • Fatima Shama, a Support Fund director, was commissioner of the New York City Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs under Mayor Bloomberg.[8][26]
  • Shari Hyman, a Support Fund director, was appointed by Mayor Bloomberg to chair the New York City Business Integrity Commission.[8][27]
  • Ian Shapiro, the Support Fund's secretary, was a Bloomberg appointee to the city's Panel for Educational Policy.[8][28]
  • Michael Best, an Action Fund director, was counsel to Mayor Bloomberg.[4][29]

DeScherer was the tightest of these, serving as Bloomberg LP's chief legal officer and a member of its board while chairing Everytown's lobbying arm, until his Everytown seat ended on March 23, 2024.[23][24][4] The current chairman, Wolfson, holds his Everytown gavel while running Bloomberg's super PAC.[6]

The pattern reaches past the board to the books. Geller & Company, the firm that has served as Bloomberg LP's chief financial officer since the company's earliest days and whose founder sat on Bloomberg's board, is also Everytown's chief financial officer, its return preparer, and its records custodian; Everytown's treasurer is listed in care of Geller & Company.[8][7] Geller was the Action Fund's highest-paid outside contractor in 2024 at $4,573,246 and a top contractor of the Support Fund at $2,487,980.[4][8] The firm that manages the donor's finances also keeps the recipient's books.

None of these are secret arrangements or improper ones. An officer may serve on any board that will have him, and a foundation may hire whatever accountant it likes. They are, on the record, the same small circle of people.

Grassroots, by its own account

edit

Set the documented record beside the organization's description of itself and the gap is the whole story. Everytown calls itself, in its own words, "the largest network of gun violence prevention organizations in the nation" and a coalition built on "grassroots advocacy" and "more than 11 million people."[3] Its Action Fund mission statement is to "promote gun safety legislation ... through the education of policy-makers, the press, and the public."[4]

Everytown has answered the donor-driven characterization directly, and that answer belongs here too. In 2014 its president rejected what the Guardian called "the top-down characterisation of the group by its opponents," pointing to 34,000 smaller donors at launch.[18] Watts later said the group's small-donor count rose from 70,000 to 375,000 after the 2018 Parkland shooting.[19] The volunteer programs are real; Moms Demand Action chapters meet in every state.

Here is my own view, and I mark it as opinion grounded in the filings above. A movement can have a large membership and a tiny donor class at the same time, and Everytown's own records describe exactly that: a volunteer base counted in the millions, and a funding base that on the public filing is one hundred percent undisclosed, anchored by a single billionaire who seeded it with $50 million, whose foundation and super-PAC gifts are in the record, whose former lieutenants chair its boards, and whose personal accountants keep its books. Calling that "grassroots" without qualification asks the word to carry more than the documents will bear. I am not saying the cause is wrong or the volunteers are insincere. I am saying that when an organization this concentrated at the top asks a state to reach into hardware you bought and own, a consumer has every reason to read the tax return before accepting the word "grassroots" on the label.

The 3D-printer mandates

edit

That brings it back to the printers. Everytown is not a bystander to the mandates the consumerrights.wiki pages cover; it is the documented advocate for them.

In New York, its policy counsel Elisabeth Ryan submitted written testimony on February 12, 2026 urging the legislature to pass Part C of the budget bill, telling the Senate Finance and Assembly Ways and Means committees that it would "require that all 3D printers sold in the state be equipped with technology that will block any files designed to produce firearms, their parts, and illegal accessories."[1] When the budget passed, Everytown claimed the result, announcing that "the legislation sets first-in-the-nation safety standards by requiring 3D printers sold in the state to be equipped with software that can block the production of firearms and gun parts," with its president quoted by name.[30]

In California, Everytown publicly campaigned for Assembly Bill 2047, which "would require that consumer 3D printers sold in California include existing technology capable of blocking attempts to print firearms and illegal gun parts."[31] In Colorado, it backed House Bill 1144, and when Governor Polis signed it on May 4, 2026 the group's president called it "an important first step," adding that Everytown would keep pushing.[32] The same organization, anchor-funded by one donor and governed by his circle, is the named voice asking three states to build a firearm-file filter into machines their residents own.

Whether such a filter can be made to work without blocking ordinary objects, and whether the part a printer makes is even the regulated part of a gun, are the questions the three companion pages take up. This page only establishes who is asking.

See also

edit

References

edit
  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Elisabeth Ryan (2026-02-12). "Testimony of Everytown for Gun Safety to the Senate Finance Committee and Assembly Ways and Means Committee in Support of PPGG Part C" (PDF). Everytown for Gun Safety. Retrieved 2026-06-03. Native-text PDF. Page 1 contains the self-identification of Elisabeth Ryan as Policy Counsel, the urge sentence supporting Part C, and the verbatim enumeration item requiring that 3D printers sold in the state block files designed to produce firearms.
  2. ↑ "Keeping New Yorkers Safe: Governor Hochul Signs Legislation to Strengthen Public Safety". Office of Governor Kathy Hochul. 2026-05-27. Retrieved 2026-06-03.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 "Ways to Give". Everytown for Gun Safety. Retrieved 2026-06-03. Source of the "largest network ... grassroots advocacy" description and the "more than 11 million people" figure.
  4. ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 "Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund Inc, Form 990 (fiscal year 2024)". Internal Revenue Service, via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. 2024. Retrieved 2026-06-03. EIN 20-8802884. Part VIII line 1f total contributions $55,448,288; Part I total revenue $57,116,526; Part IX program ratio 76.32%; Part VII names John Feinblatt President at $0 and Howard Wolfson Chairperson as of 05/21/2024; Part VII Section B lists Geller & Company as highest-paid contractor at $4,573,246.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund Inc, Form 990 Schedule B (fiscal year 2024)". Internal Revenue Service, via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. 2024. Retrieved 2026-06-03. Public-inspection copy; every contributor entry is marked "RESTRICTED," redacting both donor names and per-donor amounts.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 "Howard Wolfson". Bloomberg Philanthropies. Retrieved 2026-06-03. Identifies Wolfson as leading Bloomberg Philanthropies' education program, running Michael Bloomberg's super PAC, and having served as a New York City deputy mayor.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Bloomberg Acquires CFO Division From Geller & Company". Family Wealth Report. 2021-07-12. Retrieved 2026-06-03. States that Geller & Company served as Bloomberg LP's chief financial officer from the company's early days and that founder Martin Geller was a member of Bloomberg's board.
  8. ↑ 8.00 8.01 8.02 8.03 8.04 8.05 8.06 8.07 8.08 8.09 8.10 8.11 "Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund Inc, Form 990 (fiscal year 2024)". Internal Revenue Service, via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. 2024. Retrieved 2026-06-03. EIN 26-1598353. Part VIII line 1f contributions $35,801,796; Part I total revenue $37,348,957; Part IX program ratio 82.07%; Part VII names Feinblatt President at $0, Walcott, Shama, Hyman, and Shapiro as directors/officers, and the treasurer in care of Geller & Company; Part VII Section B lists Geller & Company at $2,487,980; the Schedule O cost-sharing agreement with the Action Fund and the program description housing Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action appear here.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 "Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund Inc, Form 990 Schedule R (fiscal year 2024)". Internal Revenue Service, via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. 2024. Retrieved 2026-06-03. Part II names three controlled section 527 committees (Everytown Federal Victory Fund EIN 85-4276951; Everytown for Gun Safety Victory Fund EIN 81-3928802; Everytown for Gun Safety Victory Fund State Committee LLC EIN 85-2959895); Part V line 1 reports the transfer to the Victory Fund of $5,500,000 (2024). The FY2023 ($7,000,000) and FY2022 ($6,500,000) transfers appear on the corresponding Schedule R Part V for those years.
  10. ↑ "Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund Inc, Form 990 (fiscal year 2019)". Internal Revenue Service, via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. 2019. Retrieved 2026-06-03. Part VIII lines 1f and 1h report total contributions of $80,682,875, all on line 1f.
  11. ↑ "26 U.S.C. § 6104(d)(3)(A)". Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. Retrieved 2026-06-03. Provides that, for an organization that is not a private foundation or a section 527 political organization, the public-inspection requirement "shall not require the disclosure of the name or address of any contributor to the organization."
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 "Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund Inc, Form 990 Schedule A (fiscal year 2024)". Internal Revenue Service, via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. 2024. Retrieved 2026-06-03. Part II Section C line 14 reports a public-support percentage of 89.260%; Part II line 5 reports $16,323,996 from donors each exceeding two percent of the five-year support base.
  13. ↑ "Bloomberg Family Foundation Inc, Nonprofit Explorer record". ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. Retrieved 2026-06-03. EIN 20-5602483; subsection 3, files Form 990-PF; extracted data reports total assets of $11,808,358,665 for tax year 2023.
  14. ↑ "Bloomberg Family Foundation Inc, Form 990-PF (tax year 2016), Part XV" (PDF). Internal Revenue Service. 2016. Retrieved 2026-06-03. Page 50 lists a grant to "Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund Inc," 909 Third Avenue, New York NY 10022, status PC, purpose "General Operations," $5,200,000. Read by the pdf-reader; "Everytown" appears once in the 73-page filing.
  15. ↑ "Bloomberg Family Foundation Inc, Form 990-PF (tax year 2017), Part XV" (PDF). Internal Revenue Service. 2017. Retrieved 2026-06-03. Page 23 lists a grant to "Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund Inc," status PC, purpose "General Operations," $5,000,000. Read by the pdf-reader; "Everytown" appears once in the 80-page filing.
  16. ↑ "Everytown for Gun Safety Victory Fund, committee C00688655 receipts". Federal Election Commission. Retrieved 2026-06-03. Schedule A itemized receipts record Michael R. Bloomberg (New York NY, Bloomberg Inc.) $1,300,000 on October 9, 2020 (FEC image 202102199428677045), and the Ballmer Group's principals $7,000,000 on April 7, 2020, $3,500,000 on April 8, 2021, and $1,500,000 on May 13, 2022 (FEC images 202102199428676503, 202105209446993207, 202206179515017857). The committee's original report of the April 2020 contribution named Steve Ballmer; a later report named Connie Ballmer.
  17. ↑ "New Gun Violence Prevention Group Everytown for Gun Safety Unites Mayors, Moms, and Millions of Americans". Everytown for Gun Safety. 2014-04-16. Retrieved 2026-06-03. States that Michael Bloomberg, "Chair of Everytown for Gun Safety," "plans to spend at least $50 million this year to reduce gun violence through Everytown's educational and advocacy efforts and through personal expenditures."
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Dan Roberts (2014-04-16). "Bloomberg-backed gun campaign group vows grassroots approach". The Guardian. Retrieved 2026-06-03. Reports the $50 million launch figure; quotes the group's stated plan to influence politicians "through grassroots campaigning rather than primarily by lobbying Congress"; states the merging groups "already have 34,000 smaller donors, insisted Feinblatt, who rejects the top-down characterisation of the group by its opponents."
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Priyanka Boghani (2020-03-24). "How Gun Control Groups Are Closing the Spending Gap with the NRA". PBS Frontline. Retrieved 2026-06-03. Reports that Shannon Watts told the Washington Post that Bloomberg "has contributed between a quarter and a third of Everytown's budget in recent years," and that the group's small-donor count "rose from 70,000 to 375,000 in the aftermath" of the Parkland shooting.
  20. ↑ "Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund Inc, Form 990 Schedule J (fiscal year 2024)". Internal Revenue Service, via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. 2024. Retrieved 2026-06-03. Charles Kelly, Political Affairs Senior Vice President, $455,831 total; Part I lines 4a-7 report no bonus or incentive compensation.
  21. ↑ "Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund Inc, Form 990 Schedule J (fiscal year 2024)". Internal Revenue Service, via ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer. 2024. Retrieved 2026-06-03. Eric Tirschwell, Everytown Law Executive Director and Chief Litigation Officer, $409,281 total.
  22. ↑ "John Feinblatt". Governing. Retrieved 2026-06-03. Describes Feinblatt as "chief advisor for policy and strategic planning to New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg" and the city's "criminal justice coordinator."
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 "Willkie Practice Leader Taking 20-Lawyer Group In-House to Bloomberg". ABA Journal. 2011-10-27. Retrieved 2026-06-03. Identifies Richard DeScherer in connection with the legal leadership of Bloomberg LP.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 "In Memoriam: Richard "Dick" K. DeScherer (1944-2024)". Willkie Farr and Gallagher LLP. 2024-03-23. Retrieved 2026-06-03. States that DeScherer "joined the Bloomberg organization in 2012, a client for whom he had served as their principal legal advisor since their inception, and later was appointed as a member of their board."
  25. ↑ "Chancellor Dennis M. Walcott". McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research, New York University. Retrieved 2026-06-03. States that Walcott "served as Mayor Bloomberg's Deputy Mayor for Education and Community Development" and was Chancellor of the New York City Department of Education.
  26. ↑ "Fatima Shama". Mayors Migration Council. Retrieved 2026-06-03. Identifies Shama as the former New York City Commissioner of Immigrant Affairs under Mayor Bloomberg.
  27. ↑ "Mayor Bloomberg Appoints Shari Hyman as Chair and Commissioner of the Business Integrity Commission". City of New York. 2011-10-19. Retrieved 2026-06-03.
  28. ↑ "Ian Shapiro". Cooley LLP. Retrieved 2026-06-03. Biography stating Shapiro's appointment by Mayor Bloomberg to the New York City Panel for Educational Policy.
  29. ↑ "Michael Best, Counselor to Mayor Bloomberg". CityLand, Center for New York City Law. 2012-12-13. Retrieved 2026-06-03.
  30. ↑ "New York Shuts Down the 'Plastic Pipeline': Governor Hochul and Lawmakers Pass Nation-Leading Measures to Stop the Spread of DIY Machine Guns and 3D-Printed Firearms in FY27 Budget". Everytown for Gun Safety. 2026-05-21. Retrieved 2026-06-03. Quotes John Feinblatt as President of Everytown for Gun Safety and Angela Ferrell-Zabala as Executive Director of Moms Demand Action; contains the "first-in-the-nation safety standards" credit sentence.
  31. ↑ "California Assembly Passes Landmark Bill to Stop the Rise of 3D-Printed Ghost Guns". Everytown for Gun Safety. 2026-05-27. Retrieved 2026-06-03. States that AB 2047 "would require that consumer 3D printers sold in California include existing technology capable of blocking attempts to print firearms and illegal gun parts."
  32. ↑ "Governor Polis Signs HB 1144 Into Law, Marking Step Forward on Tackling the Spread of 3D-Printed Guns as Advocates Push for Stronger Action". Everytown for Gun Safety. 2026-05-04. Retrieved 2026-06-03. Quotes John Feinblatt, President of Everytown for Gun Safety, calling the signed law "an important first step."
Retrieved from "https://consumerrights.wiki/index.php?title=User:Louis/Everytown_for_Gun_Safety_and_the_3D_printer_blocking_mandates&oldid=55820"