One doesn’t need to look hard to see that our Second Amendment rights, and our industry, is under fire by those who can’t fathom an individual who chooses to exercise their right to keep and bear arms.
A recent Harris poll, as reported by USA Today, showed that nearly 50 percent of all Americans are “concerned that their…right to bear arms…(is) at risk.”
We get it. We’re in the halls of Congress and our state capitals working to defend against attacks on our industry and Americans’ ability to buy the firearms they choose to shoot with recreationally, hunt and defend themselves and their families.
The mission of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, as the firearms industry trade association, is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and the shooting sports. We represent the manufacturers, distributors and retailers of firearms, ammunition and related products, as well as shooting ranges across the United States.
The hardworking, patriotic people that comprise this essential American industry depend on our work to not only protect their businesses and livelihoods, but also to protect the crucial function they play in fulfilling the ability of all Americans to keep and bear arms.
Awakening
We share the concerns of those who are witnessing the continuous assault on our civil liberties. The NSSF exists because of the Second Amendment. Without it, there are no protections for Americans who buy our firearms.
This freedom which is enjoyed by all citizens faces unprecedented threats, and Americans are paying attention. It’s being manifested in the surge of jurisdictions adopting “Second Amendment sanctuary” status in response to pressing legislative threats to our rights.
The Second Amendment isn’t the only right people see as threatened, however. Forty-eight percent of Americans also see their freedom of speech threatened while 37 percent of people see their freedom of religion threatened.
These figures aren’t outlandish to those following what is being said in the 2020 Democratic primary for president or those observing college campuses across the country. It is perfectly reasonable for Americans to worry that their right to keep and bear arms is in danger when firearm confiscation is a mainstream talking point among Democratic candidates for president.
On college campuses, these aren’t rhetorical debates. They are violent protests against young adults by communist Antifa thugs who are afraid to show their faces.
Inherent Rights
Our industry, and America’s gun owners understand, however, that the Second Amendment contains crucial language that guarantees the preservation of all of our other rights as citizens. It reads that the “security of a free state” is dependent on “a well-regulated militia” made up of “the People” who have a God-given, pre-existing common law right to “keep and bear arms.”
Without the Second Amendment, our ability to speak freely, worship freely and debate freely would face threats not even yet considered by those who participated in the Harris poll. The Second Amendment is why our industry exists.
The threats to our rights are indeed very real but the fastest way to lose them is to bury our heads in the sand instead of challenging those who wish to take them away. We’re not idle in this fray. We are undaunted and unrelenting. Our civil rights are critical to our industry, and our industry is critical to ensure the preservation of all of our rights.
Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
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The NSSF: Because fat pasty cowards who cannot get trim without paying for it need lobbyists, too!!!
Uh oh, sounds like someone’s projecting their own SHORTcomings (pun intended) on to others!
The things you say are just words when you have supported gun control on here before.
Only 50 % think we need to worry? Guarantee it’s more than that. God’s speed, if I had money I’d help you and GOA all I could.
Would argue against the assertion that our right is a “common law” or a “civil right”. As the inalienable right to self-defense is a NATURAL RIGHT. In fact it was considered by the men that framed our Constitution and Bill of Rights as “the first law of nature”. Which is precisely why the words “shall not be infringed” were employed in order to secure that right. For the word infringed is defined as follows by Mr. Webster in his 1828 dictionary, which is the same dictionary used by SCOTUS when determining original intent:
Infringe
INFRINGE, verb transitive infrinj’. [Latin infringo; in and frango, to break. See Break.]
1. To break, as contracts; to violate, either positively by contravention, or negatively by non-fulfillment or neglect of performance. A prince or a private person infringes an agreement or covenant by neglecting to perform its conditions, as well as by doing what is stipulated not to be done.
2. To break; to violate; to transgress; to neglect to fulfill or obey; as, to infringe a law.
3. To destroy or hinder; as, to infringe efficacy. [Little used.]
That makes it very damn clear what was intended. And any 2 year old has a perfect understanding of what the words “shall not” mean.
And the Dems all act like 2 year olds!
Good one!
They want the government run by them to have a monopoly on lethal force.
GeorgeWashington – “And the Dems all act like 2 year olds!”
Aye, very spoiled rotten and dangerous 2 year olds.
“Good one!”
Thank you!
“They want the government run by them to have a monopoly on lethal force.”
Correct, the very thing that the men that framed our Constitution aimed to avoid. That’s why these dim-dem traitors need to be utterly destroyed.
Happy New Year to you and yours!
to the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
The Second Amendment is not about hunting. I see many of your spokemen talk about hunting with a parent or a grandparent when they where a children. I say good for you.
I however didn’t have those experiences in my family as a kid. But I did learn that law abiding civilians did use machine guns and explosives against the tyrannical government in America where they lived.
I have never read where the NSSF supports Bump Stock ownership. Which is far less in cost compared to a real Machine Gun. Like the ones in the private collections of the friends of Marion Hammer.
I understand you can now buy a modern M134(?) gatling gun for $134,000. But it only fires in semi auto. By contrast you use to be able to buy a bump stock for $175.00 that fires as fast as a real machine gun.
They are all worried about polls. Polls are not the thing to like at. Polls are being manipulated.
The things to look at are what the people are doing. It’s in all the 2nd Amendment sanctuaries. It’s in the FBI stats. It’s in the sales reports. It’s in the increase in concealed licenses. It’s the number of people showing up to Trump rallies. Callers to radio shows and low ratings for liberal news outlets. Regardless of what you think of Limbaugh, it sure looks like he has a larger audience than MSNBC among others. I’ve been seeing a growing number of people at the gun stores. People are fighting back. We just saw this at a church in Texas. We are seeing this in Virginia. Conservative and gun related Youtube channels are strong.
It may not always look like it but there is still a strong sense of
Americana. The spirit is alive and on the move.
I hope you are right. I really do.
And a few scant years ago Vermont was the only State where you didn’t need a permit to carry. Now there are 17, and counting. That didn’t happen by accident.
I support the nssf and the sentiments of this press release in ‘in general’. However, their focus is clearly on protecting “the industry”. This is absolutely a worthwhile cause as the industry includes consumers. However, I wonder at what point “the industry’s” cause separates from those of the general American consumer/enthusiast.
I think nssf is doing great things at the moment. But This post is a good reminder to watch carefully. There are deals to be made that hurt us (American consumers worried about 2a right) and help “the industry”. Ive not seen glaring evidence of this yet- but I’m just realizing this in the last week or so as I consider which organizations to support this year.
Work together absolutely. But I’m not convinced that NSSF will be helping us with import ammo bans, or other import issues; for an easy example.
I’ll be looking more closely in the near future….
There are gun company owners who are anti second amendment. To them it’s just another business investment. Bill Ruger was like that. Smith and Wesson was nearly destroyed by a national boycott. It was lead by talk radio host Gordon Liddy in the early 1990s.
And gun makers today know that if they say anything except adsolute loyalty to the 2A, their company will be boycotted.
And gun owners tend to be not very forgiving.
That is why I got another SIG P365 for Christmas as everyone is fawning over the latest S & W M&P Shield. I do not forget what S & W tried to do. I also was given an antique S & W for Christmas, but that one was built and sold long before their anti2A stance.
They’re pretty forgiving until their own kid, or someone very dear to them is vaccine injured, and they realize how stupid they’ve been and for how long.
It’s hard to square these comments with their endorsement of Canterbury for ATF Director.
They said this about a man who said “I take a back seat to no one in my reverence for the Second Amendment” in Senate testimony as his justification for endorsing Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. A man who called for an Assault Weapons Ban in his “Letter from the President” in the National Fraternal Order of Police newsletter following the Sandy Hook shooting. Luckily, enough people didn’t bury their heads in the sand and squashed his nomination.
As other people have stated in the comments above, the National Shooting Sports Foundation has demonstrated lackluster support for the Second Amendment and sporadic support of civilian disarmament laws.
With respect to bona-fide, thorough, and unwavering support of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, I give the National Shooting Sports Foundation a C- grade at best.
The NSSF is the lobby for gun companies. It does not and never has lobbied for us. I trust the NSSF as much as I trust politicians who say “I support the Second Amendment, but ….”
The NSSF is literally the gun lobby, but not the ‘gun lobby’ that the antigun lobby warns us about.
It has long been my impression that they are only concerned with the industry’s right to do business. Whatever hoops we have to jump through to keep and bear and privately trade what they sold to us is not their monkeys, not their circus.
The governmentts of the world are controlled by Space Aliens.
Feminism wasn’t implemented to create “equality”, it was put into place to destroy the natural family unit and for population control. Has worked very well on both.
The nssf claims to be pro 2a, but it seems like they love the atf and support whatever nonsense those jack booted thugs ram down our throat -_-
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