by Everytown for Gun Safety (sic) just released a breathless report on the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
NEW: Our new report details the role that the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) plays as a front group for the nation’s firearms industry—an industry willing to cross every line for profit—and how their agenda is just as dangerous as the NRA's. 🧵https://t.co/4qTvVpy0mE
— Everytown (@Everytown) January 12, 2023
NSSF is accused of being “a front group” for the firearms industry. Well, no shit, Sherlock! They are explicitly the firearms industry’s trade association.
Then NSSF has the effrontery (sarc) to hold their trade show aka the SHOT Show in Las Vegas “just two miles from the site of the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.” How dare they bring millions and millions of dollars to Las Vegas with the 5th largest trade show in the city.
The report itself attacks the SHOT Show. The authors rail about it and Range Day being closed events “unlike other gun shows” but then go on about how NSSF is trying to get guns in the hands of everyone. Think about that – an event closed to the general public. If NSSF and the gun industry really were the evil monsters the report wants you to believe, they would invite in everyone to the SHOT Show.
But unlike other gun shows, the SHOT Show is a closed-door event open only to exhibitors, potential customers who buy in bulk — including gun wholesalers, retailers, and military and law enforcement personnel — and media outlets that regularly cover firearms.
The first event associated with the annual SHOT Show falls on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, when attendees are shuttled 30 miles into the desert to shoot hundreds of new guns from various manufacturers at a massive outdoor shooting range in Boulder City, Nevada.2 The official convention then takes place indoors, at the Venetian Expo Center and Caesars Forum in Las Vegas, where attendees can walk “13.9 miles of aisles”3 over four days to inspect all the new guns, ammo, and related gear on display — after getting through security.
With “Range Day” held in the remote desert and the rest of the convention walled off within the Venetian and Caesars Forum, SHOT Show symbolizes how far removed the gun industry is from the real-world consequences of its deadly products and how they are sold.
Read the whole thing and then think about this.
The NSSF and the industry do more to stop straw purchases through their “Don’t Lie for the Other Guy” campaign, dealer education, and FFL reporting of suspicions to the BATFE than anyone else.
In terms of actual safety, Project ChildSafe has partnered with over 15,000 law enforcement agencies to hand out over 37 million firearm safety kits. What have the Bloomberg minions actually done to promote actual gun safety? I think we know the answer.
If I had to guess, Everytown, Bloomberg, and the rest of the gun control industry are upset that the NSSF is stepping up to combat gun control just when they thought they had the NRA on the ropes. The timing of this “report” just before the SHOT Show is evidence of this.
I just hope the authors of this report had their fire-proof pants on because otherwise they would be on fire.