Top Gun-Control Activist Is Firearms Industry Spy

Mary McFate is a longtime prominent member of the gun-control movement; she is also, Mother Jones shockingly reveals, Mary Lou Sapone, a spy who infiltrates citizen groups for corporations targeted by activists—and who has been employed by the NRA. Over a decade, she reached high levels in a panoply of gun-control groups, where she had access to “plans, secrets, and inside gossip of practically the entire” movement, the piece concludes.

Confronted with McFate’s secret identity, a top gun-control figure said it “confirms for me the way that the gun lobby works, which is no rules, no question of fairness or honesty.” In her non-spying life, Sapone heads a local DAR chapter. She also infiltrated the animal-rights movement in the 1980s, urging violent and illegal action from inside. (More NRA stories.)