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The Economic Impact Of The US Firearms And Ammo Industry

April 14, 2020 by 1 Comment

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the real gun lobby, released a report last week that detailed the economic impact of the firearms and ammunition industry in the United States. It is a lot bigger than the gun prohibitionists would have you believe and it is indicative of why it is considered an essential industry.

Since 2008, the economic impact has grown 213% to $60 billion as of 2019. Just as importantly, the number of full time job equivalents has doubled from 166,000 to 332,000.

More details on the economic impact from the NSSF report:

On a year-over-year basis, the industry’s economic impact rose from $52 (billion) in 2018 to $60 billion. Total jobs increased by 20,000 in the same period, from nearly 312,000 to over 332,000. The broader impact of the industry flows throughout the economy and supports and generates business for firms seemingly unrelated to firearms at a time when every job in America counts. These are real people, with real jobs, working in industries as varied as banking, retail, accounting, metalworking and printing, among others.

The firearm and ammunition industry paid over $6.74 billion in business taxes, including property, income and sales-based levies.

“Our industry continues to show the steady and reliable growth that is a hallmark of a healthy industry,” said Joe Bartozzi, NSSF President and CEO. “The workers who comprise our ranks are the fabric of our communities. They produce the highest quality firearms and ammunition that millions of law-abiding Americans rely upon to exercise their fundamental right to keep and bear arms and safely enjoy the recreational shooting sports. This growth translates to more jobs that add to our local economies, averaging $55,200 in wages and benefits. In addition, since 2008 we increased federal tax payments by 162 percent, Pittman-Robertson excise taxes that support wildlife conservation by 79 percent and state business taxes by 116 percent.”

The full report is here.

The NSSF has also provided an interactive map of the United States which allows you to see the number of jobs, wages, and economic output created on a state by state basis. It appears that Joe Biden’s Delaware has the fewest number of jobs in the industry while Hawaii had the smallest economic impact from the firearms and ammunition industry.

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Guns 101 – Responsible Gun Handling

April 13, 2020 by 2 Comments

If anecdotal evidence is correct, there are a lot of new gun owners. The NSSF-adjusted NICS checks for March was up 80% over the prior year. It was estimated that approximately 2.4 million NICS checks were performed that were firearms purchase related.

In an ideal, non-COVID-19 world, these new gun owners would be getting training face-to-face from firearms trainers. However, these are not normal times.

To help remedy this lack of training, the Self Defense Radio Network (of which the Polite Society Podcast is a part) has put together a whole series of training videos and interviews with leading trainers. In the video below, Paul Carlson of the Safety Solutions Academy discusses and demonstrates safe and responsible gun handling for new gun owners.

I will be posting these videos daily in hopes that new gun owners see and take advantage of them.

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Forgotten Weapons On The M-1 Carbine

April 9, 2020 by 2 Comments

The M-1 Carbine is one of my all-time favorite military weapons and is an incredibly fun gun to shoot. It is light, handy, has virtually no recoil, and packs a stronger punch than usually given credit. It even has had a movie made about it featuring Jimmy Stewart as “Carbine” Williams.

My version of it was made by IBM. Yes, the computer and typewriter company. They made an estimated 346,500 of these carbines during WWII. I got it back before year 2000 and the price was a fraction of what the market demands now.

In the video below, Ian McCollum goes in great detail about the M-1 Carbine and the history of its development which he describes as a whole new class of weapon.

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Durham Capitulated…But Quietly

April 9, 2020 by 3 Comments

Last week I wrote that the City of Durham had received a demand from Grass Roots North Carolina and GOA to designate gun stores as essential or face legal action. Greensboro also got one of these letters and folded it quickly.

They did fold but did it very quietly. What the City of Durham did was release an amendment to their original order saying they were merely going to adopt the amended Stay at Home order issued by the county. This new City of Durham order didn’t go into details as to what was or wasn’t an essential business. Mayor Stephen Schewel signed the order on the afternoon of Friday, April 3rd and it went into effect at 5pm on Saturday, April 4th.

Durham County’s order didn’t mention gun dealers or ranges as essential businesses. They just said that any business that was on the Department of Homeland Security’s CISA list was essential. That list did include firearms related businesses. Perhaps it is ironic that the title of the county order was “Second Amendment to the Declaration of a State of Emergency in Durham County, NC to Coordinate Protective Actions to Prevent the Spread of COVID-19.”

As I understand it, GRNC contacted Durham County and convinced them to them to comply. Somehow officials in Durham County convinced Mayor Schewel to comply but noted he refused to make any public statement about it.

IndyWeek is a free newspaper serving the Triangle. In NC-speak, the Triangle are the cities of Chapel Hill, Durham, Raleigh, and the smaller surrounding communities. IndyWeek is virulently anti-gun.

They have their panties in a wad that Durham folded to those “gun nuts” and their demands after Mayor Schewel said he wasn’t backing down. The article notes the original April 2nd deadline and the fact that GRNC and GOA didn’t sue.

In this case, April 2 came and went, and Schewel made no such statement, but the gun groups didn’t sue. So what happened? 

Very quietly, the city rolled over. 

IndyWeek then goes into the details of the Durham County and City of Durham orders which I posted above.

As to why Durham capitulated, IndyWeek has this response from Mayor Schewel.

“Our lawyers said we couldn’t win,” Schewel told the INDY on Tuesday. “And not only that they were gonna win, but that we were gonna have to pay their legal fees. And so that’s why we made the decision—which is, you know, awful. Gun stores are not essential. In fact, they are damaging. It’s terrible to be forced into this position.”

It is good to see the Constitution and some good legal advice trumped the anti-gun feelings of the good mayor. It should be no surprise that Schewel is a member of Mayor Bloomberg’s Illegal Mayors.

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Free Books For Your Quarantine Pleasure

April 4, 2020 by 1 Comment

If you are into military history, Osprey Publishing is offering a selection of free eBooks every week. Each week they will be putting up a series of five books and you can select one or all for download.

This week the books range from a book on the Hawker Hurricane to Samurai of the mid 1500s. In between is the Battle of Waterloo, US Heavy Cruisers, and the Czech Legion.

The link is here. The code for this week is FREEBOOKS2.

Since you are stuck at home in most places by governmental order unless you are considered essential, you might as well put it to good use.

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This Is Why Newbies Are Buying Firearms

April 3, 2020 by 6 Comments

If the NICS figures are any indication, a lot of people are buying firearms. While the gun prohibitionists are portraying it as gun owners buying more, we know that is incorrect. There are a lot of first time gun buyers out there even when the state throws up roadblocks.

As to why there are a lot of newbies buying guns, it is because they correctly foresaw a rise in crime. They knew that a firearm, correctly used, will allow them to protect themselves and their families.

New York City has seen an increase in property crimes in the last 28 days according to the NYPD’s statistics. This includes a 6.9% rise in robberies, a 21.8% increase in burglaries, and a whopping 64.2 increase in grand theft auto. This is taking place in a city that is the nation’s epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic.

You are having criminals being released from prison to prevent the spread of coronavirus. Moreover, you are seeing criminals who are caught be released on virtually no bail even for violent crimes. Bond amounts are equivalent to pocket change. And this is in Texas!

Breitbart Texas reports that even Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo is concerned about the release of prisoners and the expected rise in crime.

Houston Police Department Chief Art Acevedo said burglaries in the city are up 20 percent since the issuance of “Stay-Home, Work-Safe” orders put in place by Harris County.

“Right now, burglaries have spiked 20 percent,” Chief Acevedo told Breitbart Texas in a phone interview. “Some people are seeing the shutdown of businesses as a target-rich opportunity. Habitual burglars should not be released.”

The chief said that there needs to be a plan for what to do with habitual criminals that are being released from the Harris County jail under orders from County Judge Lina Hidalgo. “What happens to these folks after they are released,” the chief asked. “What is the plan?”

Acevedo said Judge Hidalgo did not consult with him about the issue of releasing criminals from the county jail, a large percentage of which were arrested by his officers.

You have to wonder if he is rethinking his position on gun control.

The rise in crime seems to be more place specific as there are locations like the Bay Area reporting a decrease in crime while Minneapolis is reporting an increase especially in business burglaries.

UPDATE: Colion Noir who lives in Houston reports that the mayor is asking criminals to just stay home “and chill”. I agree with Colion Noir’s skepticism.

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Adjusted NICS Checks Skyrocket In March

April 2, 2020 by 1 Comment

The National Shooting Sports Foundation released their NSSF-Adjusted NICS checks report for March 2020. It shows an 80% increase over March 2019!

The March 2020 NSSF-adjusted National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) figure of 2,375,525 is an increase of 80.4 percent compared to the March 2019 NSSF-adjusted NICS figure of 1,317,114. For comparison, the unadjusted March 2020 FBI NICS figure 3,709,562 reflects a 42.4 percent increase from the unadjusted FBI NICS figure of 2,604,927 in March 2019.

Please note: Twenty-five states currently have at least one qualified alternative permit, which under the Brady Act allows the permit-holder, who has undergone a background check to obtain the permit, to purchase a firearm from a licensed dealer without a separate additional background check for that transfer. The number of NICS checks in these states does not include these legal transfers based on qualifying permits and NSSF does not adjust for these transfers. Recently, the states of Alabama and Michigan had law changes that affected their Brady Law standing which removed qualifying alternate permits usage for firearm transactions. These changes went into effect July 22, 2019 for Alabama and March 3, 2020 forMichigan. In March 2020, Alabama state’s NSSF-adjusted NICS was 212.1 percent higher than March 2019, which accounts for an additional 41,348 checks over this time last year. March 2020 NICS numbers for Michigan were up 210.8% over March 2019 and account for an additional 57,599 checks.

The NSSF adjusts the gross number of NICS checks to subtract out checks that are used by states for issuing permits such as concealed carry permits and permit rechecks.

It should be noted that there is not a 100% direct correlation with firearm sales as there are states which have substitutes for the NICS check and a NICS check isn’t performed on that sale or purchase. Moreover, if one is purchasing multiple firearms at the same time, a single NICS check will usually suffice. Of course, in many free states, no check of any sort is done on private sales regardless of the type of firearm.

What this increase shows, in my opinion, is that there are a lot of people waking up and realizing that they must be responsible for their own safety and that of their family. One would hope that many of these new firearms owners – especially those who had to jump through all sorts of hoops and waiting periods – will now become Second Amendment advocates.

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Greensboro Backs Down But Will Durham

April 2, 2020 by

Grass Roots North Carolina and Gunowners of America sent a demand letter to the cities of Greensboro and Durham on Tuesday. It demanded they rescind or change the determination the firearms-related businesses were not essential. They had until noon today to make the change or they would face court action.

Yesterday, Mayor Nancy Vaughan of Greensboro informed GRNC and GOA that she wrongly determined gun stores and ranges as “non-essential”. Now it remains to be seen if Mayor Steve Schewel of Durham will do likewise.

Picture courtesy of Carolina Peacemaker

On a related note, I got a response from Buncombe County yesterday for why they didn’t include gun stores and ranges in their list of essential businesses. Buncombe County felt that since state statute preempted them from closing them during periods of emergency that it would have been superfluous to have listed them as essential.

The release from GRNC on Vaughan’s retreat is below:

The mayor of Greensboro, North Carolina, has reversed herself and now agrees that gun stores within city limits can remain open, after being contacted by Grass Roots North Carolina (GRNC) and Gun Owners of America (GOA) and The Mayor had told the media that gun stores were not “essential” businesses, despite the fact that the city’s “stay-at-home” order stated otherwise.

This reversal comes after a Cease and Desist letter from GOA and GRNC urging Mayor Nancy Vaughan to correct her interpretation, or face legal action. Mayor Vaughan informed GOA and GRNC via email that she was incorrect in her interpretation.

While GOA and GRNC are thankful for the clarification, both organizations still look forward to seeing a public announcement by Mayor Vaughan to let the citizens of the Gate City know they can lawfully visit and purchase firearms and ammunition from gun stores during the “stay-at-home” order.

Likewise, Wake County, North Carolina has also reopened its gun stores after a similar letter sent by GRNC and GOA,  which also sent letters Guildford County and the city of Durham urging the localities to ensure gun stores remain open or face legal action.  

Elsewhere, when contacted by legal counsel for GRNC and GOA, the attorney for Orange County disavowed any statements previously made, saying its language would protect firearms businesses, and Buncombe County advises that although they did not specifically list firearm businesses as “essential,” the county will follow state guidelines which protect firearm businesses provided they follow social distancing requirements.

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Safariland Launches Tactical Drop-Leg Holster For The Space Force

April 1, 2020 by 2 Comments

Safariland just announced today that they are releasing the Model 8304 Space Force SLS™/SRS® Drop-Rig Tactical Holster. It is aimed directly at the newest member of the Department of Defense – the Space Force. You can see a video of this new holster below.

Just a reminder. Before you rush out to your local Safariland dealer because you want to be as tacticool as the next Space Force wannabe, you need to remember the day.

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GRNC And GOA Put Durham And Greensboro On Notice

April 1, 2020 by

The mayors of Greensboro and Durham have deemed firearms dealers and gun ranges to be “non-essential” businesses. Under their respective proclamations, non-essential businesses must close.

In response, Grass Roots North Carolina and Gunowners of America have sent a joint letter to each mayor. They note the Federal recommendation that firearms related businesses should be critical infrastructure. The letters ask that the mayors reverse the non-essential designation before noon on April 2nd or risk lawsuits. They also point out that Wake County had received a similar letter and made the changes.

From the release which was sent out by email:

Building on our success in convincing Wake County to reopen firearm-related businesses by adding them its list of “essential services” to avoid litigation, as well as today’s court decision ordering Wake County Sheriff Gerald Baker to resume issuing pistol purchase permits, GRNC and GOA today sent letters to the Durham Mayor Steve Schewel and Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughn, advising them of their non-compliance with federal recommendations for critical infrastructure by ordering firearm related businesses to close.

GRNC will continue to monitor North Carolina cities and counties for non-compliance with state and federal statutes and for violations of the US and North Carolina constitutions during the coronavirus emergency.

To see the City of Durham letter: 

https://www.grnc.org/documents/goa-grnc-city-of-durham-soe-letter.pdf

To see the City of Greensboro letter: 

https://www.grnc.org/documents/goa-grnc-greensboro-soe-letter.pdf