Last week, from the Democratic primary debate stage, former Vice President Joe Biden said we were the enemy.
“Our enemy is the gun manufacturers, not the NRA, the gun manufacturers,” Biden said.
Not a single candidate on stage that night, or the night before, condemned the remark. Their silence is tacit agreement. Not a single candidate had the courage to name the violent criminals as the problem or the fortitude to stand up to those who prey upon the vulnerable in our society. Instead, they are blaming us as an industry and the law-abiding gun owners we serve.
This is what we’re up against in the coming election season. It’s indicative of how much the landscape has changed and the lengths elected officials will go to score points.
Firearms Industry is America
National Shooting Sports Foundation®’s members need to know what their trade association is up against and what we’re doing. It’s going to be a struggle and there’s no room for anyone to be on the sidelines. We will need all member companies to be engaged and ensure our industry is able to conduct the lawful business of providing firearms to the more than 100 million law-abiding American gun owners in every state for legal use, including recreational shooting, hunting and self-defense.
Every Democratic candidate is now gunning for an industry that supports 312,000 jobs earning $15.7 billion in wages and has a total economic impact over $52 billion. The firearms industry is an integral economic contributor, having paid more than $6.8 billion in total taxes in 2019 alone.
The firearms industry is the fabric of America. These are American jobs in every corner of the nation. Our industry is the “Arsenal for Democracy,” a phrase coined by Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt, supplying the firearms that our armed forces and brave men and women of law enforcement use to protect our nation and keep our communities safe.
Confiscation Rhetoric
Candidates on the stage, including former Vice President Biden, agreed with the far-fetched notion of mass confiscation of firearms, a plan first proposed by Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.). Biden said, “I would buy back those weapons.” That plan would use the tax dollars paid by law-abiding gun owners to confiscate the more than 16 million modern sporting rifles in private ownership today under threat of criminal penalty for noncompliance.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) defended firearms confiscation as legal. “That’s not confiscation,” she said. “You would give them the offer to buy back the gun,” without reference to criminal penalties.
But we already have a template of what it looks like when a government would make criminals of lawful citizens because they don’t like the guns they own. New Zealand is attempting confiscation now and just 37 of the 1.2 million semiautomatic firearms were surrendered because gun owners there don’t trust the government to protect them or pay them fair market value.
Failed Technology
Biden’s firearms industry animus went further. He would bar all firearms sales, except those equipped with “biometric” authorized-user technology.
“No gun should be able to be sold unless your biometric measure could pull that trigger,” he explained.
Here’s what most forget. NSSF was at the table with Vice President Biden when he sought these answers before. He was named by President Barack Obama in 2012 to lead a gun control task force that proposed 23 executive actions, including exploring “gun safety technologies.” The National Institutes of Justice studied the technology to “unlock” guns and after investing $12.6 million for research over 15 years, “none were successful.”
In fact, a recent survey found just five percent of gun buyers would consider buying a “smart-gun.” A further 70 percent said they would never consider it for fear of failure when it’s needed most. A gun, especially when used defend lives, must work as intended without fail or flaw. This technology doesn’t exist.
In the wake of the Newtown, Conn., tragedy, the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s President and CEO Steve Sanetti met with Vice President Biden who singled out NSSF’s Project Childsafe®program that has distributed over 38 million gun safety kits including gun locks through 15,000 police agencies in every U.S. state and territory.
He said then, “You guys are doing a lot of good things, including the gun lock thing, and this isn’t just Joe Biden blowing smoke. I mean it.”
NSSF in Action
We know now today’s reality is every Democratic candidate views firearms ownership as unacceptable. The lines are clearly drawn.
NSSF is ready. We refuse to stand by while politicians smear the very industry that provides the means to exercise the freedoms. The firearms industry is among the most- highly-regulated industries and we won’t be a convenient punching bag for misleading talking points.
We are aggressively pushing back in the media. We are not ceding an inch of ground whether that’s on the national debate stage or special sessions called by Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam to push his gun control agenda that’s already been rejected by the state’s General Assembly.
We are also informing our members of what the candidates are saying through our #GUNVOTEvoter education program. Anyone is able to follow the updates on Twitter and Facebook to learn about the issues, stay informed and know how to register to vote. Get involved. Don’t risk your rights.
Lastly, NSSF’s Political Action Committee is engaged. We are working to support candidates for office who appreciate our industry, value our contributions to our communities and respect Second Amendment rights.
It will take all of us. Members need to get involved. Subscribe to NSSF’s alerts, get plugged in with the PAC and read up on what the candidates are saying through #GUNVOTE. Invite your family and friends. Our livelihood and our way of life depend on it.
Joe Bartozzi is the president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
Sorry Biden, my guns aren’t for sale. Your thugs are welcome to have the bullets though, free of charge.
I’m in agreement. My guns will NEVER be for sale, especially to a government that would seek to undermine the Constitution of this nation. If I remember correctly, Mighty Joe once suggested that citizens whose homes were being invaded by perps, should fire their gun up in the air. This, I know, was actually the very epitome of stupidity, but then, again, remember that it was Creepy Ole Uncle Joe that said it. Can’t believe he actually wants to be president.
Just ask how many of these political types would jump out of a plane with a “biometric” authorized-user technology parachute — I know I wouldn’t!!!
This stupidity spewing out of the Dem Party on gun control is somewhat analogous to hitting a square peg into a circular hole; it’s dumb but the Dems are going to keep pounding the square peg with a consecutively bigger hammer every time.
If you hit hard enough you can do it but you will break something. Granted breaking something is kinda the point.
More like a boot stamping on a human face.
Forever…
“… it’s dumb but the Dems are going to keep pounding the square peg with a consecutively bigger hammer every time.”
The ‘advice columnist’ Amy laid it out, plain as can be – According to her, and those like her, there is no right of citizens to own and carry guns, and use them, if necessary, to defend themselves. They refuse to budge on that point. We refuse to give them up.
Supply side drug war logic. Too lazy to fix the end user’s behavior directly, so they think if they just attack a smaller list of targets enough, supply will dry up and the end users will sit on their hands frustrated instead of innovating ways to continue their chosen behavior.
Seems like a “kick the hornet nest” strategy if you’re supposedly worried each gun/owner if a raw nerve away from ending you.
Maybe now that NSSF is being targeted directly, they can drop the Fudd shit & get with the program, the way the NRA has proved unable.
At least the democrats can stop pretending with statements like I Support The 2Nd But…….
Makes voting R a little easier but not completely worry free
Food for thought; the Dems being antigun has no bearing on Republican support for gun owners. Never forget that.
No shit, the ‘modern’ Republican party is nearly every bit as ‘Progressive’ as the Leftists…
Nearly. As I’ve told friends, a Republic MIGHT vote to infringe. A Democrat WILL vote to infringe (and often to confiscate). You have slightly better odds with one versus the other.
The true enemy of this country is the Demonrats. They should be declared domestic terrorists and arrested, charged and jailed.
THAT is exactly what they have planned for us.
“They should be declared domestic terrorists and arrested, charged and jailed.”
Nowhere near enough jail cells to accomplish that…
FEMA already have plans. Most deaths will be the traditional Soviet way of starvation, disease, neglect, or shortages, if you survive the overzealous ANTIFA interrogation.
The ‘Antifa’ think they have violence *down*. The reality is going to be more than they can stomach…
Joe Biden is irrelevant to the 2020 primary season. A throwaway for the demtards. Even with dozens of morons running for the position of “former presidential candidate”, it is very likely we have not yet heard anything from the anointed one.
The demtard machine has to machine.
Let them throw all the commie spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks with the public. Then bring in chosen candidate to bring the party back from the far left to be electable compared to the crazies and evil Nazi Trump. Try to get the moderate vote with lefty votes guaranteed then candidate swings full left after inauguration to address the crisis the Nazis created. Sound about right?
Somebody snagged their playbook? Did it include the appendix where they divide up the spoils?
Stalin circa 1924-1930
Biden is a proxy for Hillary; he’s got this in the bag
For the moment my money is on the two Colorado candidates for a meet in the middle approach when the drama gets too crazy but an unannounced entry is also possible. With that being said Biden could work if they are just trying to upper the pressure for 2024.
The ‘establishment’ Leftists will consider Biden to be a ‘safe’ choice that has the best chance of being elected…
Last election absolutely I think alcohol/old age may be hitting him hard this time around.
I wonder what if the Demons would be talking such sh!t if America had not been castrated by 50 years of radical left
educationindoctrination.The Soviet Union never actually fell. It just moved to San Francisco.
The soviets had nothing on the Commonwealth. Even run by the same people.
Keep digging, dummycrats. Keep digging.
The Democrat equivalent of “catch 22”. Civilians can’t own a gun unless it’s a “smart” gun and there is no such thing as a “smart” gun so you can’t own a gun.
Well, they were right that the NRA is not THEIR enemy. Wayne LaPierre has been seeing to that.
Not Real Activists:
Negotiating Rights Away since 1934
So you were rooting for a permanent federal assault weapons and 10+ round mag ban then. Along with the federal ammo registry that was in the ’68 NFA.
I for one would never sell my guns to my government. Joe Biden thinks he can tell us we must give up our arms. He is a fool if he thinks that we will turn over our arms, just because he says so. Any attempt to enforce such an edict will result in the second Battle of Concord, only spread out to wherever they attack American citizens.
Blah…Blah…Blah. Words mean nothing. Threats are hollow without actions. Time to Shut up… Man Up…Kick some Ass…Clean up the Mess…Start Anew. Keep Your Powder Dry.
We really need to keep hammering…. It’s 27 words long. What part don’t you understand? The anti’s will keep trying to change the subject and redirect. Don’t let them. Make them admit what they really want to do. They aren’t really against guns and never were. They just want to make sure that what guns exist are there to enforce their agenda
‘Gun industry’ and even ‘the gun lobby’ or the ‘NRA’ are dog whistle terms. The real enemy is you. The type of person who dares to live their life as self reliant as possible. Who takes on the task of his or her own self defense and doesn’t rely on the mercy and competence of the state. Gun OWNERS are the enemy to the Democratic party.
Yep. They’re all different angles of attack on the same target, and that target is us. You and I and everything we love about America.
So the gun manufacturers are the “real problem?” What if all the gun manufacturers stopped supplying firearms to all government agencies upon the election of a Democrat president? I mean, those Dems wouldn’t want to traffic with the enemy now, would they?
I remember when anti-gun groups spread the myth the Sierra Match King bullet was too accurate for us mere civilians and said it should only be sold to police and military.
Sierra said if that became law they would cease production because the sales to only police and military would not be economically viable.
The Dems could always outsource to their Chinese overlords.
If they keep calling us the enemy we should treat them as such.
“Democrats Target the Gun Industry as ‘The Enemy’”
Not really new, just ramped up rhetoric…
They have to scapegoat someone for their endemic failures.
Little does that Moron Biden know that if you destroy the gun industry we then will have to buy foreign weapons for U.S. Troops. Foreign Countries could then black mail us by not selling us weapons when we start yet another endless war of rape, pillage and conquest. Which means Biden may not be a stupid as he looks.
lest we forget:
doctors
opioids
cars
all kill more people in america than guns
perhaps if they really cared about human life they would start there
but we all know thats not true
theyre not at all the party that values life
if it was 7 of their idiots in black robes wouldnt have stared into the 14th amendment
*a reconstruction amendment*
long enough until their eyes saw what they wanted them to see
Joe who when it was vp you never heard from him now he’s coming up with all this rederick on guns isn’t he the one who said ” I own a shotgun and told my wife to just shoot through the door ” ???? Joe who
Every piece of gun control law requires a guy with a gun to enforce it.
They better hope we don’t target the dems as the enemy, because there are no euphemisms in my sentence.
The libtards need to get out of America before we forcefully remove them
If these brilliant democraps have all the answers to gun control over private individuals with no criminal backgrounds, why don’t they try it now on a small scale. What have they done in the city of Chicago? What’s taking them so long?