‘Squad’ Member Cori Bush Employs Pro-Gun Private Security Firm

Defund the police advocate gave $90K to group that promotes pro-gun messages on social media

Joseph Simonson and Matthew Foldi • February 2, 2022 6:15 pm

Rep. Cori Bush (D., Mo.), a leading socialist member of Congress who wants to defund the police, spent tens of thousands of dollars on a right-wing private security firm that promotes the Second Amendment.

Bush, a member of the far-left “Squad,” spent more than $90,000 on Peace Security LLC, a private security firm, since she took office last year, according to campaign finance documents reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon. She spent more than $50,000 on the firm in the last quarter alone.

The hiring of the security firm contrasts with the anti-police, pro-gun control agenda Bush promotes on Capitol Hill. Although Bush says that restricting the public’s access to firearms will make Missourians safer, her private security force regularly shares Facebook posts expressing right-wing views on gun control.

On the campaign trail and in office, Bush regularly calls for greater background checks for gun purchases. Meanwhile, her security firm in March 2021 argued against the gun control measure by pointing out that “criminals by definition DON’T OBEY LAWS.” Another post shared by the firm in June 2019 features a picture of a woman holding a gun with the caption, “This stops rape. Not a whistle.” In March 2021 Peace Security shared a post from a Facebook page called Defiant Arms with the caption, “[A felon] must be taught to fear his victim.”  

“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people,” Peace Security wrote in a February 2020 post. In another about the “Racist Roots of Gun Control,” the firm lamented that America’s gun control laws are systemically racist. 

“Throughout much of American history, gun control was openly stated as a method for keeping blacks and Hispanics ‘in their place,’ and to quiet the racial fears of whites,” the post reads. 

Neither Peace Security nor Bush responded to a request for comment.

Bush, a self-proclaimed faith healer whose car was recently hit by a stray bullet, is unequivocal about the need to defund and disband police departments. When asked in August 2021 about the apparent contradiction between advocating fewer police officers while paying thousands of dollars for private security, Bush responded, “Suck it up, and defunding the police has to happen, we need to defund the police.” 

The latest revelations about Bush’s campaign spending come amid an otherwise lackluster fundraising quarter. Despite her membership in the high-profile House “Squad,” Bush herself only raised $238,536 in the final three months of 2021. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.), in contrast, raised nearly $1.5 million during that same period.