During Donald Trump’s presidency, the NSSF used its lobbying muscle to help prod his administration to move regulation of gun exports from the state department to the commerce department, a shift that seems to have yielded financial dividends for gun exporters due to the department’s pro-business approach.
In the past few years, as the 5-million-member NRA has been battered by financial woes, internal rifts and legal threats from the New York attorney general and private interests, the NSSF has expanded its legal and lobbying spending to fight gun-control efforts nationwide, while boosting gun rights and industry sales.
“The NSSF functions as the gun industry’s voice, with a singular focus on expanding the market for all types of firearms, including assault weapons and short-barreled rifles, and is eclipsing the NRA’s lobbying power on Capitol Hill,” said Kristen Rand, a lawyer with the Violence Policy Center, a gun control advocacy and research group.
The rising clout of the NSSF is underscored in part by the group’s increased spending on lobbying, which has outpaced the NRA’s lobbying spending in recent years. For instance, in 2020 and 2021, the NSSF reported spending $4.6m and $5m respectively on federal lobbying. By contrast, the NRA spent $2.2m and $4.9m.
Further, the NSSF’s legal muscle has expanded in the last year since the NSSF tapped the former solicitor general Paul Clement as an outside lawyer to fight laws in seven states that limit the protections from lawsuits that were granted by Congress.
Clement has also mounted legal challenges for the NSSF against new gun-control measures in New York, New Jersey and other states that have been enacted in the wake of a supreme court decision last year against a New York law limiting concealed-carry permits to those people who can show a “proper purpose” for having such weapons outside their homes.
The NSSF’s board of governors reflects the group’s financial interests and clout: the board includes top executives from major arms companies such as Daniel Defense and Smith & Wesson, which made the AR-15 military-style assault rifles used in the Uvalde and Highland Park mass shootings.
Little wonder the NSSF, founded in 1961 and once best known for hosting an annual and lavish “Shot” (Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade show) in Las Vegas, has become a more active and visible player waging legal and lobbying battles to boost arms company interests, say experts and gun control advocates.
“The NSSF burrows in on every nook and cranny of gun regulation as it works to ensure that the gun industry’s financial interests are consistently and zealously represented – on even the most arcane issues. For NSSF, gun violence prevention legislation is literally bad for business,” said Rand. …
“Make no mistake: the NSSF is even more insidious than the NRA with its ever-expanding lobbying operation and abnormally cozy relationship with its regulator,” said Adzi Vokhiwa, the director of federal affairs at Giffords, the gun control advocacy group. “The NSSF hides behind its public identity as a simple trade association, while aggressively working to undermine any and all attempts to slow this nation’s devastating gun violence crisis.”
Vokhiwa, for instance, noted that the NSSF ran a television ad blitz, its first ever, to scuttle the Biden administration’s first nominee to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, David Chipman, by stressing his role as a Giffords adviser after 25 years of serving as an ATF agent.
“From leading dangerous smear campaigns against ATF director nominees who publicly promise to better regulate the gun industry, and bullying members of Congress to vote against even the most reasonable pieces of legislation regulating guns, the NSSF continues to value gun-industry profits more than the American people’s right to live in safe communities,” Vokhiwa said.
Other gun-control advocates say the NSSF, like the NRA, has often exploited fears of gun owners and pushed conspiracy theories about “big government” efforts to undermine the second amendment, in order to rally opposition to gun-control measures.
— Peter Stone in ‘Even More Insidious Than the NRA’: Us Gun Lobby Group Gains in Power
“The NSSF functions as the gun industry’s voice, with a singular focus on expanding the market for all types of firearms, including assault weapons and short-barreled rifles”
☝️Shocking news!😱
LOL! NSSF really does want us to buy more guns!
“BREAKING: The Guardian Exposes the NSSF as an Industry Trade Association That Represents Its Industry Members”
Nuts. I thought it was a Babylon Bee headline….. 😉
Here’s an old joke from the series Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister.
The Times is read by those who run the country.
The Guardian is read by those who wished they could run the country.
The Sun is read by those who don’t care who runs the country.
just what is a “reasonable” restriction?…….
So not even double digit millions in lobbying has them panicked? Imagine if we spent at the level of the chicken industry
Imagine their response if Bloomberg and Soros donated what they spend on advancing gun control and s0cietal change to gun rights instead.
Thankfully the relevance and influence of dead tree media is waning.
ya but what to do about the brain melting uv box?
The funding amounts of NSSF and NRA are a laughable pittance at a federal level.
The Groanian is a British paper. The should be careful who they piss off.
Hmmm…so water’s wet & Dims suck? I kinda doubt Negotiating Rights Away has 5000000 members now🙄
“The NSSF functions as the gun industry’s voice, with a singular focus on expanding the market for all types of firearms, including assault weapons and short-barreled rifles, and is eclipsing the NRA’s lobbying power on Capitol Hill,”
True, but only because Wayne Lapierre turned NRA into his own personal piggy bank, and it doesn’t have the money or stature it use to.
The Guardian was so sure of themselves that they don’t even have a Comment section for this article. Don’t want anyone calling out their BS spewing.
I noticed that!
Follow the money. How many of the legal challenges to 2A infringements benefit “the industry”, more than the public?
Legal challenges to this or that infringement are generally described as defending the public, but, if the source of infringements (NFA/GCA) were removed*, many of the “pro-gun” organizations would have zero purpose; gun sales would likely dip into negligible numbers, and donations to “pro-gun” organizations dry up.
“We’ve” been trying the “crush one cockroach at a time”, and it results in a waste of money. Remove the source of infringement (NFA/GCA), and the “gun industry” will suffer great loss of income.
*My single issue hobby horse
Sam I Am,
You bring up some very interesting points. If all government entities did what is right, we would not need any of the advocacy groups, we would not need any lawsuits, and people would buy less firearms and ammunition. That would obviously mean financial doom for advocacy groups and their attorneys–and a serious financial downturn for firearms/ammunition manufacturers. (It would even mean reduced campaign contributions for politicians.)
As is almost always the case: the masses get screwed.
“As is almost always the case: the masses get screwed.”
You may have discovered the unifying theory of the universe so diligently pursued by Einstein, and others.
String Theory, as in, string ’em all up.
Apart from hydrogen, the most common thing in the universe is stupidity.
— Harlan Ellison
And there are limits of the amount of hydrogen.
Only thing I got from that article is how much the NRA needs to be disbanded for not doing their job.
NRA supports “SENSIBLE GUN CONTROL”, came out of Wayne “THE TRAITOR” Lapierre in the 90’s..
And he is making his predecessors happy, with this stance..
Since the NRA was all in on the past “GUN CONTROL LAWS”!!!!
“The Guardian Exposes the NSSF as an Industry Trade Association That Represents Its Industry Members”
Ok…not sure what this is supposed to mean but ok.
Were I to take this at face value and accept it as true then my response is…well, duh 🙄
So what does this have to do with Trump? Shouldn’t this be what NSSF would be doing even if Trump never existed?
What does it mean?
Slow news day in ol’ Blighty.
They had this opinion piece ready as filler for such a situation.
Trying to distract people from the burning car carrier off Holland with 500 EVs among 3000 cars after an EV battery underwent thermal runaway.
so, the anti-gun narrative of ‘NRA BAD! They are the enemy and the reason we can’t have our control over constitutional rights” didn’t work out so well when that pesky thing call the Constitution is upheld by SCOTUS…so let’s switch enemy’s and try it again and keep this going.
NSSF as an Industry Trade Association That Represents Its Industry Members
That is both good and bad.
It is good in that the National Shooting Sports Foundation advocates for the firearms industry which SOMETIMES happens to also be GOOD for People of the Gun.
And it is bad in that the National Shooting Sports Foundation advocates for the firearms industry which SOMETIMES happens to be BAD for People of the Gun even though their advocacy is good for the firearms industry.
Little more than a massive recruiting piece for the NSSF!
Where do I join!?
You have to be a manufacturer of guns first….
Yeah… I bet they could set up a litigation section and sell individual memberships and take in a ton of money!
@hawkeye
“String Theory, as in, string ’em all up.”
Kind of an “off label” application, eh?
My parents’ predilection for frugality encouraged in me a certain appreciation for the multi-purpose.👍
“My parents’ predilection for frugality encouraged in me a certain appreciation for the multi-purpose.”
Being “cheap” has its virtues. I am in a constant quest to lower all my utility bills by $1/mo. Quite entertaining, and lets me feel good about single-handedly preventing
global warmingclimate change, and extinction of all life on the planet.Mom likes Panera Bread restaurants, and she’s tickled half to death whenever my wife takes her to one for lunch. One time, as my wife was paying for their order, Mom piped up and said, wait a minute, I still have a balance on this gift card. She proudly whips it out of her voluminous purse (has a plastic liner, for eating at buffets), and says, it has 8 cents left on it! Every little bit helps! My wife is still embarrassed by that, a few years later.
My ancestors killed redcoats so I wouldn’t have to give a shit what some broke British newspaper thinks about my natural, inherent rights.
perhaps the Brits should stick to their own business?…and keep their nose out of ours!…..
Tell them to get back to us when Kahn gets his London immigrant ‘knife problem’ under control…
What made me laugh was “lavish trade shows”. I’ve been to a few SHOT shows. They are are entertaining and educational, but lavish? No. There were consessions, but they were what I call “fair food”. Give it one star. Over priced cocktails at the end of the day. The closest I got to lavish was when I got back to my hotel and found a good restaurant. I only went to those in the East. Atlanta, Orlando, New Orleans, Houston. When NSSF began holding them in Las Vegas exclusively I quit going.
i’d say they’re lavish from a vendor plethora standpoint. the list from ’22 is 59 pages long- thousands.
convention food, hospital food, banquet wedding food (i went back and tacked “banquet” on there because i just know you’ve been to receptions that served marlin ceviche tostadas and smoked pastrami), airplane food all the same. the only large outdoor concession food that ever impressed me were the sheboygan brat’s at road america, little german potato salad, little ‘kraut.
please tell me more about this “gun violence prevention legislation.” how’s that work?
“please tell me more about this “gun violence prevention legislation.” how’s that work?”
“Do come along, Bond.”
When there are sufficient numbers of laws, violence and violent crime will be eradicated in America, no one lacks anything, and can have, at taxpayer expense, whatever they want.
The intent and goal are, however, doomed to failure. Everyone knows the root cause of crime is “the law”; no law, no crime.
you made it sound briefly palatable. like beer boiled yuengling brat.
“you made it sound briefly palatable. like beer boiled yuengling brat.”
I don’t even want to be in the same zip code with that.
harsh winters.
@hawkeye
“Every little bit helps!”
Right. “A penny saved is…….a penny”
And in other news, the pope is Catholic, water is wet, and bears sh*t in the woods.
@Stuck in Pugetopia
“Apart from hydrogen, the most common thing in the universe is stupidity.
— Harlan Ellison”
A potential ‘nuther unifying theory, but given the distances and unverifiable number of destinations…..
We can’t properly evaluate the proposition.
The Guardian.
A mouthpiece media outlet for Nanny State Great Britain. ‘Nuff said.
Sure glad we dumped all that tea in Boston Harbor 250 years ago and broke free from living under that yoke.
The newspaper for the outer Establishment, such as that whining pom “Prince among Kings” Albert. He gets his copy as wrapping for his fish and chips.
If the liberty-centric stuff and things that are going on here pisses off some British media outlet mouthpiece, that sure makes me smile.
This article from the Guardian really “woke” me up. I need to join the NSSF immediately.
@Southern Cross
“And there are limits of the amount of hydrogen.”
The dimensions of that will only be known when we count the final molecule of hydrogen in the universe.
Whoa! I might have just come up with project for government scientists to spend limitless amounts of taxpayer monoply money.
But tell me again why the NSSF supports Redflag confiscations and safe-storage laws? They support them so much that they failed to mark down their grades of folks who wrote and voted for last year’s Bi-partisan Safer Communities Act? They gave the RINOs responsible for that A-grades regardless because they actually SUPPORTED that anti-2A law!
Shame on them. These FUDDS like Larry Keane and his lackeys at the NSSF are no better than that “Negotiating Rights Away” group that is currently undergoing bankruptcy under Wayne LaPierre.
@tsbhoa.p.jr
“harsh winters.
Four winters in North Dakota will re-calibrate one’s sense of “harsh”.
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