Everytown using AI to strip away our Second Amendment rights
by Lee Williams
6:00AM FRIDAY, MAY 22, 2026
Last year, the parents of a 16-year-old boy alleged in a lawsuit that ChatGPT encouraged their son to kill himself.
In October 2004, a New York AI system falsely told business owners they could steal tips, fire anyone who complained about sexual harassment, and serve food even after it was chewed by rats.
In August 2005, a 56-year-old man killed his 83-year-old mother in her home and then committed suicide. He believed his mother was a secret agent who was poisoning him with psychedelic drugs, and his chatbot agreed and supported his delusions.
In July 2005, an AI system told a user how to break into an attorneyâs home and to bring âlock picks, gloves, a flashlight and lube.â
Now Everytown for Gun Safety is using AI in an attempt to further erode our Second Amendment rights.
What could possibly go wrong?
Last month, Everytown announced it had created the Everytown Evidence Engine, or E3, an AI system they claimed would help them âharness AI policy to identify gun safety solutions.â
They made the move to AI because âefficient systems for analysis can lead to new questions and new answers in the field of gun violence prevention research.â
How reliable is Everytownâs new AI?
You can judge for yourself.
Claude
Everytown admitted its new E3 AI system was built using Claude, an AI system designed by the firm Anthropic. Both Claude and Anthropic have had significant problems.
In a recent story titled âAnthropic Admitted Claude Code Broke. We Were Right,â a reporter at Medium announced he had found issues with the system.
The reporterâs hard work forced Anthropic to admit that Claude had major problems.
In a story titled âAn update on recent Claude Code quality reports,â Anthropic claimed they had fixed everything.
âOver the past month, weâve been looking into reports that Claudeâs responses have worsened for some users. Weâve traced these reports to three separate changes that affected Claude Code, the Claude Agent SDK, and Claude Cowork. The API was not impacted,â Anthropic claimed.
The firm also promised it would âdo things differently to avoid these issues,â and that more of their staff would use the public version of the software.
Sky News recently released a damning YouTube video about public interactions with Claude.
The British report discusses how the chatbot tells users what they want to hear.
âWhat happens when AI starts pulling people away from reality and even encourages them to act on distorted beliefs?â the reporter asked.
The video discusses a recent Canadian research paper that found one of every 1,000 conversations with Claude has the âpotential for severe reality distortions.â
âWe donât know why Claude responds as it does consistently,â an expert said.
The researchers also discovered that the number of potentially harmful discussions with Claude was actually growing over time. An Anthropic spokesman admitted they knew that Claude had problems, but they didnât know why.
âLimitationsâ
When Everytown addresses everything that its new E3 tool cannot do, you have to wonder why anyone would use it.
Even Everytown admits E3âs limitations are simply breathtaking.
âFor example, at this time, E3 does not currently weigh all of the factors that could be influencing gun violence such as gun ownership, employment and earnings, strength of policy implementation and enforcement, law-enforcement practices, and many other relevant and granular socioeconomic and demographic characteristics particularly at the county and/or neighborhood-levels,â Everytown wrote.
So despite its long list of limitations, how does Everytown intend to use its new E3 tool?
They donât really say.
â[T]his new tool can provide users with important directions regarding policy effectiveness that can be used for critical decision-making. And it is the hope that future iterations of the E3 will incorporate these kinds of variables and, ultimately, increase its ability to conduct additional types of analyses,â Everytown wrote.
Takeaways
Thus far, all of Everytownâs critical decision-making has involved how to strip guns from the hands of gun owners. They spend millions annually trying to create more local, state and federal anti-gun laws. Whether their new E3 system will help them remains to be seen.
Alan Gottlieb founded the Second Amendment Foundation more than 50 years ago and serves as its executive vice president. He was struck but not surprised by the problems with Everytownâs new AI system.
âWhen you are unintelligent, you think any AI system will be better than your own brain," Gottlieb said. "But being unintelligent, odds are you will pick the wrong one. Everytown sure did.â
