Fierce Patriots

Conservative Political News

  • Subscribe

<![CDATA[firearms industry]]>

The anti-gun left has a new bogeyman to replace the NRA

by Leave a Comment

For decades anti-gun activists have railed against “the gun lobby,” which to them has been synonymous with the National Rifle Association. Lately, however, the gun rights group has been less of a bogeyman for the left, which has found a new Public Enemy #1; gun manufacturers. More specifically, the firearms industry trade group known as the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

If it wasn’t obvious before now, the Daily Beast makes it explicitly clear that the gun control lobby is focused on demonizing the firearms industry in their latest piece, which claims that the NSSF may not be as well-known as the NRA, but it’s been spending “more money annually to influence policy, while pushing the country further to the right”; a statement that’s only accurate if you believe that the right to keep and bear arms is solely the provenance of political conservatives instead of a right of the people, regardless of their political affiliation.

As evidence, the Daily Beast relies primarily on gun control activists like Shannon Watts, who are eager to portray the firearms industry and the tens of thousands of Americans who are a part of it as cold, heartless, sociopaths who are intentionally arming criminals through negligent practices.

Shannon Watts, founder of gun control organization Moms Demand Action, told The Daily Beast that the NSSF is a “front group” for the firearms industry and “trafficks in the same extremist, guns-everywhere agenda” as the NRA.

“They’re focused on the profitability of the gun industry above all other concerns—including the safety of the American public,” Watts said.

Ryan Busse, who recently left firearms manufacturer Kimber America to become an industry whistleblower, told The Daily Beast that an ascendant NSSF, under the influence of a radicalized consumer base, will position itself “further right than the NRA ever thought.”

“The NRA has been sort of this messaging and PR mouthpiece for the industry, but the industry is in essence the truly powerful thing, which is why the NSSF is taking a more visible role,” said Busse, now a senior adviser at gun control advocacy group Giffords. “With all the lessons they’ve learned, they know that conciliation on policy is a losing proposition, so they’re going to be as far right or further right than the NRA ever thought.”

This would be the same NSSF that Busse and other activists claimed just a few months ago was working too closely with the ATF and its acting director Marvin Richardson. If the trade group has decided that being conciliatory is a losing proposition (and you shouldn’t just take Busse’s word at face value) it’s probably because the Biden administration is doing everything in its power to turn the agency into a gun control group with regulatory authority over the firearms industry.

“Gun politics aren’t at the center of politics? Bullshit,” Busse said. “It looks very much like Trumpism, and in fact it’s where Trumpism all started. The firearms industry radicalized and empowered a certain brand of consumer, and that base ends up setting the policy.”

The result, Busse said, is a gun industry that’s “increasingly addicted to or reliant on an ever-spiraling condition” in U.S. politics.

“It’s like a badly gerrymandered district, where the pressure only comes from the most extreme base,” he added. “That should frighten everyone.”

The thing that Busse conveniently ignores is the fact that the NSSF is not a gun owners’ group like the NRA, Gun Owners of America (which Busse called “crazily radical”), Second Amendment Foundation, or Firearms Policy Coalition. The NSSF represents manufacturers, distributors, and retailers, but not consumers.

Even more, based on what I’ve seen from the NSSF over the past couple of years, the group is highlighting the growing diversity of gun owners (including those on the left) far more than attaching itself at the hip to one political philosophy. Case in point; the recently introduced bill to repeal the 11% excise tax on firearms and ammunition proposed by Rep. Andrew Clyde of Georgia, who is himself a gun store owner. If Busse was right about the NSSF then it should be fully on board with Clyde’s proposal, but instead the NSSF is one of several organizations that has come out in opposition to the bill; arguing that if enacted it would jeopardize hundreds of millions of dollars in funds that go to promote the shooting sports as well as fund wildlife and habitat restoration programs.

It’s no coincidence that the Daily Beast report quotes Busse so extensively. His employer recently put out a “study” that argues the NSSF is really the top dog in D.C. when it comes to gun-related lobbying, not the NRA.

According to the Giffords report, the NSSF has now outspent the NRA in federal lobbying for five of the last seven years, including the last three—and even lobbied on the NRA’s behalf when the New York Attorney General’s office sought to shut the NRA down for misusing funds.

“This would appear to make the NSSF the dominant gun lobby in Washington,” the report concludes.

While the NSSF’s tax status allows it to keep its donor list private, it’s clear from financial disclosures and reporting that the group gets the bulk of its financial support from the firearms industry. Unlike the NRA, most of its money doesn’t come from donations and dues; it comes from an annual trade event, called the SHOT Show.

Of course it gets the bulk of its funding from the firearms industry. NSSF is the firearms industry trade group, for crying out loud. That’s hardly a secret. In fact, it’s emblazoned on the home page of the NSSF website.

The reason why the gun control lobby is elevating the NSSF and not, say, GOA as the new 800 lb. gun rights gorilla in D.C. is simple; demonizing and destroying the firearms industry gets them much closer to their goal than targeting another gun owners group. We just saw a House committee accuse gun makers of putting profits ahead of the lives of kindergarteners and the House narrowly approve a bill barring the manufacture and sale of so-called assault weapons, while House Democrats are still working on a bill to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act once they return to D.C. from their August recess.

Even with the PLCAA in place gun control groups and their anti-gun allies in blue states from New York to California are working to make it easier to sue gun makers for the criminal misuse of their products, with a goal towards bankrupting the industry through the use of junk lawsuits. At the same time, the gun control lobby is trying to make it illegal to build your own gun. If they get their way you might still have the right to keep and bear arms on paper, but you’d be hard pressed trying to actually exercise those rights in practice. Their primary target may have shifted from the NRA to the NSSF, but the end goal of the gun prohibitionists is still the same; to erect insurmountable barriers between you and your right of armed self-defense.

House Dems accuse gun makers of fueling mass murder

by Leave a Comment

Today’s House Oversight Committee hearing on “the practices and profits of gun manufacturers” was just as one-sided and propagandistic as you would expect from a meeting controlled by Democrats and chaired by longtime anti-gun politician Carolyn Maloney of New York. On today’s Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co we’re taking a look at some of the new lows, misinformation, and outright falsehoods unleashed by House Democrats during the hearing, starting with Maloney herself.

The chairwoman of the Oversight Committee started things off by falsely claiming that gun makers are selling AR-15s and other semi-automatic rifles to “children”, which would be a clear violation of federal law. No one under the age of 18 can lawfully purchase a rifle or shotgun at retail, and you must be at least 21-years old to buy a handgun from a federally licensed firearms retailer. 18-year olds may still be teenagers, but they’re also legal adults in the eyes of the law, and Maloney was simply wrong to assert otherwise.

Things didn’t get any better from there, with Maloney asking questions to the CEOs of Daniel Defense and Sturm, Ruger like how many more children have to die before you will stop selling “weapons of war” that are the “weapon of choice in most mass murders”; another blatant falsehood easily disproved by looking at FBI data, which shows that handguns are used far more frequently in both active shooting incidents and violent crimes like aggravated assaults and homicides of all types.

There were some odd lines of attack from other Democrats on the Oversight Committee, including Rep. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, who took issue with the fact that many manufacturers allow for firearms to be bought on credit or using payment plans. Lynch honed in on the fact that the killer in Uvalde, Texas purchased a Daniel Defense rifle in that manner, while ignoring the fact that far more law-abiding Americans have done the same. In Lynch’s world it would be illegal to buy a firearm on a payment plan, even though requiring all gun owners to pay 100% cash up front would make it difficult if not impossible for many Americans living paycheck to paycheck and struggling under Bidenflation to save the money necessary to purchase a firearm for self-defense.

Rep. Katie Porter of California, meanwhile, tried to make the case that gun companies are willfully ignoring “safety features” like fingerprint scanners that would identify authorized users before a gun could be fired. Porter claimed that “smart guns” are already on the market, though from what I’ve been able to tell companies like Lodestar Firearms and SmartGunz (which uses RFID technology instead of a biometric fingerprint reader) haven’t yet opened up sales to consumers.

Porter asked both gun company CEOs at the hearing whether they would commit to putting fingerprint readers on all of their future firearms, and both Daniel Defense’s Marty Daniel and Sturm, Ruger’s Christopher Killoy told her “no,” with Daniel adding that his customers haven’t asked for such a feature. Killoy tried to explain some of the inherent flaws in “smart gun” technology, but like Maloney and many of the other Democrats on the Oversight Committee, Porter cut him off rather than let him finish a complete sentence.

The intent of today’s hearing was twofold for Democrats; first to provide committee members with a soundbite-friendly setting to scapegoat gun makers and blame them for the actions of criminals, but also to try to goose support for the “assault weapons” ban that was scheduled for a vote in the House Rules Committee this afternoon. Instead, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ended up yanking the bill from consideration after an intra-party squabble between progressives and moderates over the legislation and a companion bill that would have increased funding for local law enforcement.

In her closing statement, Maloney asserted that she invited gun makers to today’s hearing to apologize to the victims of mass shootings and to promise to stop the sale of “assault weapons” in the future before calling on Congress to ban modern sporting rifles and to repeal the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, once again using the podium to demonize the firearms industry instead of looking for real solutions aimed preventing violent actors from carrying out their cowardly acts. Maloney and her cohorts have made it clear that their path to public safety involves taking a bulldozer to the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens, and I suspect that Republican congressional candidates will be making use of their colleagues’ anti-gun rhetoric in their own campaign ads between now and November. Lord knows Maloney and company gave them plenty of material to work with today.

New Jersey AG opens new office dedicated to suing gun companies

by Leave a Comment

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen the gun control lobby has cranked up its efforts to use civil litigation to try to shut down the firearms industry. California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a several gun bills designed to make it easier to sue gun makers over the criminal misuse of their products, and now New Jersey Acting Attorney General Matthew Platkin is dedicating staff to that same end.

Platkin announced on Monday the formation of the Statewide Affirmative Firearms Enforcement office, which he says will be dedicated to suing companies within the firearms industry that ““knowingly or recklessly contribute to a public nuisance in New Jersey through unlawful or unreasonable conduct.”

“Make no mistake – thanks to Governor Murphy and the Legislature, New Jersey is once again a national leader when it comes to combatting gun violence,” said Acting Attorney General Platkin.  “At a time when the U.S. Supreme Court is undermining states’ efforts to protect their residents from the carnage of gun violence, New Jersey’s Statewide Affirmative Firearms Enforcement Office will use the new public nuisance legislation to hold the gun industry accountable. With the establishment of this office we are sending a clear message to every participant in the firearms industry: if you violate our laws, you will pay.”

The Supreme Court didn’t “undermining states’ efforts to protect their residents from the carnage of gun violence.” It told the state of New York (and other “may issue” states like New Jersey) that they were infringing on the rights of residents to protect themselves. The state of New Jersey is under no obligation whatsoever to protect any of its individual residents, and the same is true for every police department and law enforcement officer in the state. Ultimately your safety is your responsibility, and Platkin and his fellow anti-gun Democrats want to do everything they can to prevent law-abiding New Jersey residents from exercising their right to armed self-defense.

The acting AG’s press release makes clear that companies don’t even have to violate any of New Jersey’s gun laws in order to be sued into oblivion.

SAFE’s work will be distinct from but supplement the Department’s ongoing – and successful – efforts to use the ­state’s Consumer Fraud Act (CFA) to stop out-of-state gun dealers from selling illegal firearm products into New Jersey over the internet.  In March 2022, Acting Attorney General Platkin announced that the State had obtained a $175,000 judgment against Florida gun vendor 22Mods4All for violating the CFA by advertising and selling illegal large-capacity magazines (LCMs) to New Jersey consumers online.  The judgment also permanently barred 22Mods4All from future online sales of LCMs here.  A second gun vendor named in that suit – Florida-based Elite Aluminum – agreed to pay a $150,000 civil penalty and stop selling LCMs in New Jersey.

But the public nuisance lawsuits will provide even more robust enforcement tools, by allowing the Department to hold firearms manufacturers and retail dealers accountable for endangering the safety and health of New Jersey residents through the sale, manufacture, distribution, or marketing of lethal, but nonetheless legal, firearms.

Those victories against companies selling “large capacity magazines” are likely short-lived, since I don’t see the state’s mag ban passing constitutional muster, but note as well the last paragraph quoted above. Even guns and magazines that don’t run afoul of New Jersey’s many restrictions on firearms could be the subject of “public nuisance” litigation under the theory that simply manufacturing, selling, distributing, and marketing these products creates a risk to health and public safety.

While Plakin is taking aim at the firearms industry, teenagers who are bringing loaded guns to school in the state are walking away with probation and he’s not saying a word. It’s evident that New Jersey’s latest anti-gun initiative isn’t about stopping crimes like these, but about preventing law-abiding citizens from accessing their Second Amendment rights. Matthew Platkin should be embarrassed by these actions aimed at curtailing the exercise of a constitutionally-protected right, but he’s proudly touting them instead. Here’s hoping that he’ll soon get a reminder from the courts that what he’s trying to do doesn’t just place him on the wrong side of history, but the wrong side of the law as well.

Biden's second choice for ATF director approved by Senate. What happens next?

by Leave a Comment

Steve Dettelbach’s nomination as permanent director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives limped across the finish line on Tuesday as the president’s second choice for the job won approval in the Senate on a 48-46 vote. Two Republicans, Rob Portman of Ohio and Susan Collins of Maine, ended up voting for Dettelbach, giving him a slim majority and giving gun control activists their biggest win of the Biden presidency.

Yes Dettelbach was Joe Biden’s second choice, with gun control activist David Chipman’s nomination flaming out in spectacular fashion after Democrats Angus King and Joe Manchin declared they couldn’t vote for him. Dettelbach doesn’t have Chipman’s history of working as a gun control lobbyist, but the two men share the same anti-gun ideology. Dettelbach himself received the endorsement of Everytown for Gun Safety when he unsuccessfully ran for Attorney General in Ohio in 2018, and he’s expressed his support for a ban on so-called assault weapons as well as “universal background checks.”

Now the gun control lobby has one of their own in charge of the agency that enforces our nation’s gun laws and regulations, and as you can imagine, they’re thrilled.

Of course, the gun control lobby thinks the firearms industry itself is a “bad actor,” and one of the first things we’re likely to see with Dettelbach installed as the ATF’s top dog is a much more adversarial relationship between the ATF and the industry. The left lost its collective mind earlier this year when it was revealed that then-acting director Marvin Richardson had attended SHOT Show and actually sat down for discussions with the National Shooting Sports Foundation. There was nothing new or nefarious about that, but anti-gun activists portrayed the professional relationship as a sign that the ATF and the firearms industry have become too cozy. With Dettelbach now in place, the gun control lobby expects the ATF to treat the firearms industry in an outright hostile fashion.

So far the NSSF hasn’t officially weighed in Dettelbach’s confirmation, but senior vice president and general counsel Larry Keane did share a story on Twitter on Tuesday afternoon raising doubts about the impending ATF rules on unfinished frames and receivers as well as pistol stabilizing braces.

In the piece, Keane suggests that, thanks to the Supreme Court’s ruling in West Virginia v. EPA, the agency could find it difficult if not legally impossible to enforce the new rules, even with someone as hostile to the Second Amendment as Steve Dettelbach in charge at the ATF.

The decision to limit the EPA’s authority to promulgate rules over “cap-and-trade” schemes doesn’t seem like a direct translation to the Department of Justice (DOJ) and ATF until it’s looked at through the lens of executive agencies claiming legislative authority where it does not exist. The DOJ and ATF claimed authority to rewrite the rules defining what is a frame and receiver and define AR-pistols as short-barreled rifles under the 1968 Gun Control Act and the 1934 National Firearms Act. In both laws, however, the authority for ATF to do so doesn’t exist. In fact, defining firearms is explicitly the authority of Congress.

Congress set the definition of what constitutes a firearm in the 1968 Gun Control Act. In the case of reclassifying AR-pistols as short-barreled rifles, these definitions were created by Congress. Congress alone has the authority to rewrite them. Neither of the laws include provisions allowing agencies, including the ATF or the Attorney General, to rewrite definitions of what constitutes a firearm on their own.

The DOJ, through the ATF, appears to be overstepping their congressional authority to redefine frames and receivers differently from how Congress defined the terms in statute. Similarly, the agencies are attempting to redefine what is classified as short-barreled rifles and subject them to the NFA regulations, including taxes, photo and fingerprint submission and onerous background checks. The role of the ATF and DOJ is to enforce the 1934 NFA and 1968 Gun Control Act. DOJ and ATF have the congressionally delegated authority to faithfully implement those laws through rulemaking. But that delegated authority doesn’t authorize them to change the law on their own to match advancements in technology or their view of good public policy.

The major question with the DOJ’s proposed rules is where do they derive Congressional authority to assert this power? The rules, in light of the W.V. v. EPA ruling, appear to be out of bounds. The Supreme Court’s decision is a welcome – and necessary – check on the growth of the undemocratic “administrative state.”

The ATF’s new rules are already facing legal challenges ahead of their enforcement dates (late August for the rule regarding frames and receivers and September for the pistol brace rule), but as Keane points out, the Supreme Court’s decision in both Bruen and West Virginia v. EPA cast serious doubt on the ATF’s authority to impose these new restrictions in the first place. The gun control lobby is undoubtably expecting big things from Steve Dettelbach, and I’m sure he’ll do his best to live up to their expectations, but the courts could (and should) reign in the agency’s abuse of power before the gun control lobby is able to fully weaponize the ATF against the firearms industry and individual gun owners.

Newsom signs bill establishing gun industry “code of conduct” designed by anti-gun advocates

by Leave a Comment

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is continuing the state’s Infringeapalooza Festival of gun control, signing a new bill into law on Tuesday that creates a “code of conduct” for the firearms industry to operate in the state and encourages lawsuits against companies that to be sued by individuals, political subdivisions, and the state Attorney General for violations.

The new “code” is in reality a list of demands for gun manufacturers, distributors, and retailers, and seems designed to produce lawsuits rather than increasing public safety. There’s a lot of incredibly vague language about the industry having to establish and enforce “reasonable controls” over the downstream use of their products (which is problematic enough), as well as subjective standards for whether or not a firearm should be considered “abnormally dangerous”.

(c) A firearm industry member shall not manufacture, market, import, offer for wholesale sale, or offer for retail sale a firearm-related product that is abnormally dangerous and likely to create an unreasonable risk of harm to public health and safety in California. For the purposes of this subdivision, the following shall apply:

(1) A firearm-related product shall not be considered abnormally dangerous and likely to create an unreasonable risk of harm to public health and safety based on a firearm’s inherent capacity to cause injury or lethal harm.

(2) There shall be a presumption that a firearm-related product is abnormally dangerous and likely to create an unreasonable risk of harm to public health and safety if any of the following is true:

(A) The firearm-related product’s features render the product most suitable for assaultive purposes instead of lawful self-defense, hunting, or other legitimate sport and recreational activities.

(B) The firearm-related product is designed, sold, or marketed in a manner that foreseeably promotes conversion of legal firearm-related products into illegal firearm-related products.

(C) The firearm-related product is designed, sold, or marketed in a manner that is targeted at minors or other individuals who are legally prohibited from accessing firearms.

As you can see by the last line, the new law (like another newly signed bill that’s already being challenged in court) also seeks to eradicate youth shooting sports in the state by making it an “actionable” offense to design or market a product meant for youth shooters. That single-shot Crickett rifle that I used to teach my own kids how to shoot safely and responsibly? Yeah, that would be considered “abnormally dangerous” under this new law simply because of its size and youth-friendly design.

Democrats are busy patting themselves on the back after Newsom put pen to paper, with the governor himself speaking more harshly about the firearms industry than the violent criminals who are getting slaps on the wrist thanks to far-left prosecutors like George Gascon in Los Angeles.

Democratic lawmakers said they crafted the legislation, which was sponsored by Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta, to work within the boundaries of a federal law that shields manufacturers and dealers from certain lawsuits.

“To the victims of gun violence and their families: California stands with you. The gun industry can no longer hide from the devastating harm their products cause,” Newsom said in a statement. “Our kids, families and communities deserve streets free of gun violence and gun makers must be held accountable for their role in this crisis. Nearly every industry is held liable when people are hurt or killed by their products — guns should be no different.”

Under Newsom’s standard, if you get into a car accident and someone’s driving a Ford, you should be able sue the automaker even if there was no design defect or mechanical issue responsible. The driver could be drunk and behind the wheel without a license, but the car company should still be held liable for their misuse of the vehicle, at least according to the governor.

Now, there’s no way that Newsom would actually apply that standard to any industry other than the firearms industry. He’s not talking about lawsuits based on design defects or manufacturing errors. He wants to hold gun companies responsible for the criminal misuse of their products, even if they’re lawfully manufactured and legally sold in compliance with every one of the dozens of gun control laws on the books in California.

This isn’t about “gun safety.” It’s not even about gun control. It’s about bankrupting gun makers through junk lawsuits and implicitly prohibiting education and training for younger shooters with an end goal of eradicating the right to keep and bear arms for all.

I have no doubt that Newsom’s ultimately going to lose this fight, but in the meantime countless Californians are going to continue to suffer the consequences of the Democrats’ refusal to acknowledge our fundamental right to keep and bear arms. California criminals, on the other hand, don’t seem to be impeded in the slightest by the state’s infringements on the rights of legal gun owners. Why would they be? Virtually every one of the new laws signed by the governor and approved by the Democratic-dominated legislature are aimed squarely at those trying to lawfully exercise their Second Amendment rights, not those willing and wanting to use a gun to aid in their criminal endeavors.