Buzzfeed is alleging that the gun violence prevention group Mayors Against Illegal Guns (MAIG) “is finding it hard to keep its membership up,” citing a few dozen of the group's hundreds of mayors who have resigned their offices, lost re-election, or chosen to leave the group due to “political heat.” In reality, the group has seen its membership increase by 17 percent during roughly the period of time the article discusses.

In suggesting that mayors would flee a group that supports stronger gun laws in the face of political pressure from the National Rifle Association, the Buzzfeed article buttresses a long-running media myth that politicians who oppose the NRA should fear being defeated for reelection.

In the article, headlined “Mayors Abandon [NYC Mayor Michael] Bloomberg's Gun Control Group,” Buzzfeed called MAIG “a rare group battling in the trenches against the well-organized and deep-pocketed” NRA. The article cites four mayors who “appear not quite to have signed on for that level of political heat” and left the organization because they disagree with some of its recent policy stances. The article further stated:

According to an old version of its member list, saved on a blog dated back to late February, more than 50 mayors who were then listed on MAIG's website are no longer there. Most of the mayors whose names are no longer affiliated with the group are off the list either because they resigned or lost an election, but others have specifically asked to be removed. BuzzFeed reached out to dozens of the replacement mayors and none of them would confirm if they planned to join the group or if they were even considering it

Buzzfeed reported halfway through the article that, according to the group's executive director, MAIG “is growing much faster than it is shrinking” -- a claim that, if true, would seem to debunk the premise of the story. After all, if the group is replacing members at a faster rate than it is losing them, the group could hardly be said to be “finding it hard to keep its membership up.”

The reporter does not appear to have attempted to verify this statement, instead placing it in opposition to the balance of his reporting. But a review of membership lists published on the group's website indicates that MAIG has seen a dramatic increase in mayors choosing to affiliate with the group in recent months.

Buzzfeed did not link to the “old version of its member list” it compared to the group's current roster of affiliated mayors. But the version of the group's membership list saved to the Internet Archive on January 27 lists 857 mayors; the list currently posted on MAIG's website features 1005, an increase of 148 mayors. According to a Media Matters review, MAIG has seen its representation increase in 33 states during that period; it has held level in 6 states and decreased in 8 states.

UPDATE: Buzzfeed has updated their article, changing their original report that MAIG “is finding it hard to keep its membership up” to indicate instead that the group “is finding it hard to maintain some of its members.” In a correction appended to the piece, Buzzfeed explained that the change was made “to reiterate the fact that Mayors Against Illegal Guns is gaining more members than it's losing.”