Elizabeth Warren gun control
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren speaks at the Presidential Gun Sense Forum, Saturday, Aug. 10, 2019, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

By Larry Keane

Politicians making sweeping promises they can’t keep is nothing new on the campaign trail. The vitriol as of late – assigning blame for the horrific crimes of sick and twisted individuals to the firearms industry – is something that has become, unfortunately, predictable. It’s part of the political gamesmanship from those who don’t understand our industry or respect our rights or the values for which our industry stands.

The rhetoric went from campaign clatter to all-out industry threats last week when U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) released a plan she claims would reduce so-called “gun violence” by 80 percent.

What her real plan is designed to do is cripple the firearms industry, subvert the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, deny rights to American adults through age-based bans and revive the Obama-era Operation Choke Point. Her version, though, would be a stranglehold.

Senator Warren’s plan paints the firearms industry with a broad brush, blaming the men and women who work in our factories for the deaths of 40,000 in 2017. She doesn’t account that nearly two-thirds of those were suicides and the negligent firearms use resulting in death is at historic lows.

She doesn’t want to admit that efforts like our real solutions for safer communities are actually making a difference. Her campaign promises, though, would shift blame, ignore those responsible for horrific crimes and doom us as a society that is both less free and less safe.

Accountability

Senator Warren’s plan, as she puts it, would “rein in an out-of-control gun industry — and to hold both gun dealers and manufacturers accountable for the violence promoted by their products.”

The firearms industry makes products for law-abiding citizens. We’re the ones who brought the idea of an instant background check at the retail gun counter to reality. We’re the ones who worked to improve the background checks through our Fix NICS program and efforts to prevent illegal straw purchases with our Don’t Lie for the Other Guy campaign with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF).

Through the Project Childsafe initiative, our industry partnered with 15,000 law enforcement agencies in every state to provide over 38 million firearms safety kits with free gun locks. We are committed to keeping firearms from those who should never possess them. Our actions demonstrate that much more than political bellowing.

Anti-Gun, Anti-Business

It’s not just that Sen. Warren would throttle the industry. She intends to choke it off completely. President Barack Obama administration’s Operation Choke Point might have been a textbook example of government overreach to illegally and unfairly malign an industry, but Sen. Warren’s plan is a complete rough-shod trampling of laws.

She would use the authority of the U.S. Attorney General to investigate and pressure banks and third-party vendors who have business ties to the firearms industry. This isn’t a proposal of someone who is charged with protecting America’s freedoms and free markets. It’s the proposal of a despot aimed as seizing government control of our financial institutions to kill off the industries that person doesn’t like.

Senator Warren would throw up roadblocks to exercising gun rights, starting with a 10 percent handgun and 11 percent ammunition tax.

Then she adds on denying civil rights to adults under 21 through age-based gun bans and banning an entire class of firearms, repealing the bipartisan Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (which she’d ensure by ending the Senate filibuster rule) and finishing with her goal of putting firearms manufacturing executives in handcuffs. In Sen. Warren’s plan, it’s not the criminal who is responsible for the crimes they commit, it is the executive.

Senator Warren introduced her plan by listing the towns and cities where unthinkable tragedies have occurred. Here are others she might want to consider.

Sutherland Springs. The murderer in that Texas town was stopped by a law-abiding citizen armed with a modern sporting rifle. Broken Arrow. A 19-year-old in the Oklahoma community repelled a home invasion with another modern sporting rifle.

Anoka. It’s the small town in Minnesota where Federal Premium Ammunition is made. Newington, New Hampshire. That’s the town where SIG Sauer, the maker of the new M-17 handgun for our U.S. military has their headquarters.

There are too many to list for every police department, in each big city and small town across America. Our police officers carry the sidearms made by U.S. firearms manufacturers, many of those made in a small town in Smyrna, Ga., by GLOCK.

One more American address Sen. Warren should know: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, D.C. Inside and outside of The White House, the agents who protect and safeguard the president, his family and the men and women who work there are armed with the firearms our industry produces.

Senator Warren makes promises to destroy our industry because we make firearms. We make so much more than guns and ammunition. We make America.

 

Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel at National Shooting Sports Foundation.

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80 COMMENTS

  2. Warren is irrelevant. Just like the rest of the Dem field. They have nothing to offer, and only nag and complain.

    • Actually, she’s quite entertaining, especially knowing that she has a snowball’s chance in blazes of ending up on the Democratic ticket for 2020. The more Poke-a-Something speaks, the more she confuses everyone.

      • Last week one of the online betting sites had her at the top of the heap, 30 cents pays a dollar if she’s on the ticket next year. Kamelface was closer to ten cents.

        • The top three right now are Warren, Biden and Sanders. Harris is plummeting, and other than Spartacus, Beto and that guy from Indiana whose name I can’t spell without looking it up,no one can remember the names of all of the others.

        • Warren’s too far kooky Left, and Sanders comes across as the angry uncle who just wants to smack everyone on the other side of the dinner table. Neither would be taken seriously at any global summit by other nation leaders, and even Dems know it.

          That leaves Biden. He’s in his late 70s and has a creepy habit of sniffing womens’ hair, but he’s the most “stable” of the bunch so far.

          If – and I use bigly air quotes over my head – “IF” Warren somehow ends up on the Dem ticket next year, Trump will chew her up for lunch and forget five minutes later as he tackles the next big thing on his daily menu.

          We’re only in August, everyone, and in only a few weeks America will be enjoying the Holidays. Wait until January for the true sifting to happen. That’s when scandals and twenty-year-old gaffs come back from the past to haunt them.

  3. Abortions? 380 thou a year? Who’s on the side of moral? And that new one, post birth abortion? Wouldn’t that be called murder? As the governor of Virginia said the doctor and mother discuss> For how long, 2 or 3 years?

      • That’s correct, Cavendish. That’s what my own research pulled up as well when checking the Gov’s own numbers.

    • To Timothy Toroian and Leighton

      Its none of your damn business poking into another persons private life if they want an abortion, but mass slaughter by assault rifle affects everyone and you may be next in some maniacs sights. Think about that before trying to shift the conversation from something that affects every one to some ones private life that is none of your fking business. You Far Right Wingers scream about the second amendment while trying to destroy the 1st Amendment and the right to privacy as well. I would call that hypocrisy.

      • Of course you support abortions, vlad. The majority of which are performed on black women. You fascists have used planned parenthood to conduct a genocide on blacks. Mass murder is the end game of you types.

      • Vlad, what about the baby’s rights? The baby is another person inside the mother. The proof of that is the placenta which is there to prevent the mother’s immune system from attacking the baby. The mother lost the right to harm the baby when she got pregnant. If she doesn’t want the baby she can put it up for adoption. That is much more acceptable in God’s eyes than hiring a hit man to kill the baby. I doubt you will change your mind but I’m praying you will eventually. And this post will be here for others who aren’t sure what they believe.

        • Before a woman becomes pregnant and after she delivers the new Life, her body is hers to manage. But, during the gestation period the new Life inside her is not hers to do with as she pleases. Her creator has blessed her with the responsibility of bringing new Life into the world. During the gestation period her body is NOT hers to do with as she pleases. If a female of our species does not want the responsibility of bringing new Life into the world, then practice some form of birth control including abstinence. Abortion=Murder plain and simple!

  4. Later that day, Warren announced her plan to reduce bead imports from Japan by 80%….

  5. Please clap for the deranged woman from Mass,as she can’t even apologize to the Cherokee nation and get them to buy the sincerity of said apology,but she dreams of being president,mean while she isn’t qualified to clan up around the casino.

  6. “Paleface squaw speaks with forked tongue”. – Injun Times

    Shannon’s Sugar Daddy spent close to $100 million on the 2018 mid-terms. He has made noises about spending as much as $500 million dollars on the 2020 election. That is a lot of wampum and Lieawatha wants her cut. All of the candidates, from the party of intolerant, hate-filled, anti-civil rights bigots (democrats), are trying to outdo each other on extremist gun control proposals. They smell those dollars and are doing their best to please their paymaster.

  7. Take a good look at that Philly standoff . If they can’t disarm a criminal with a few guns in a rowhouse how’s their big disarmament plan going to work out.

    • That guy had nothing to lose. If he had a good family, kids, grandkids, friendly close neighbors, job, owned a home, he wouldn’t have done that, (unless he was insane). You won’t fight the feds taking your guns because your kids will be in the same living room looking at you….with fear in their eyes.

        • Victoria’s mostly right.
          Old guys who don’t GAF and don’t have anything to lose that they value more than the remaining years of their lives are the ones who will go all Carl Drega on you when they decide you aren’t getting away with violating their rights.

      • Maybe, but there is only one way to find out. If even a small percentage of Citizens refuse to submit to tyranny it will permanently and dramatically alter the fabric of American life for the worse. I have no doubt Warren and her ilk of Statist vermin are willing to do that. Not so sure about the electorate that will have to endure it.

        Gun owners aren’t the only ones that are given to fantasy scenarios about gun confiscation. Socialists that think the Army & Law enforcement will have an orderly and efficient clean-up leading to gun-free nirvana are completely wrong.

        • How’d the nation-wide bump stock turn in/destruction go? Handfuls were turned in by individuals, a distributor turned over their stock, we don’t know how many were destroyed in private, and some people are protected by injunction pending resolution of lawsuits. More than half of them probably still exist in the hands of private citizens/newly crafted overnight felons. Getting rid of 80% of the guns will be even less successful. Even if you could get 80%, almost all would be by law abiding and the violent criminals and gangs would keep theirs. Gun violence would likely increase at that point as most victims would be defenseless.

  8. I don’t like warren at all but she is looking more and more like being the democrat candidate and whoever is the democrat candidate has a very good chance at winning in 2020 if TTAG comments section and other firearm forums are accurate showing a considerable percentage of firearm owners have thrown in the towel on President Trump vowing to stay home on election day 2020 for bump stack ban and just mentioning he would look at gun control bills that congress comes up with.

    The progressives will continue to chip chip away at our Second Amendment Rights very patiently while reassuring us they support the Second Amendment (mostly) as they move to their ultimate goal of disarming law abiding citizens while millions of gun owners sit back and yawn thinking it won’t affect them and when it does they will blame republicans, the NRA, or anyone but their lack of doing anything to stop it.

    • Yes, Trump apparently screwed us over in the bump-stock ban, unless he shrewdly recognized how many procedures and laws were broken or bruised by his Executive Order. Even Obama never Executive Ordered any anti gun legislation, he let it go through the proper Congressional process.
      Then his poorly worded comment on the pussy Piers Morgan’s show about suppressors… “I don’t like them and will be looking into it” or words close to that effect.
      Rumors of an Executive Order ban on pistol braces last week?? Where the f did that come from? Was it the shooter with the AR pistol, a blade and an unreliable Beta C-Mag (unless you carry a graphite squeeze bottle with you)??
      Anyway, In the much larger picture he is still better than any Bernie or Elizabeth or Beto so you may want to consider your decision and go vote against Democratic Socialism. I’m very pissed at POTUS for being such an easily manipulated dummy and it’s becoming patently obvious that he is not a hunter or shooter or NFA owner like his son or sons. He is a city boy, probably never has chopped wood or twisted a wrench and most likely has soft perfumed hands…

  10. It’s amazing that people can’t see that the Socialist candidates all became wealthy being Capitalists. Everyone has to sacrifice except them.

    • They know if they are not a part of the revolution they will certainly be among the first victims.

  11. Fauxcahontas even beats the Hildebeast for smarmy. Soooo ez to hammer on advancing her IvyLeague carrer by plain ole’ lying. I think she’s already lost the injun vote(I am either 1/32 or 1/64 canadian ojibway native). Pathetic field of Dumbocrats…

  13. She obviously hasn’t considered the legal precedent of repealing the PLCAA. Car makers will be held accountable for DUI and accidents. Distillers and breweries will be held responsible for the consequences of over consumption of their products. And this is the proverbial and literal tip of the legal iceberg.

    • Fast food and food companies in general for obesity and cancer and diabetes? Big sugar? Soda companies?
      Or will they blame utensils?

    • But she still defends giving the pharmaceutical industry complete federal protection from all product liability when with vaccines when they injure or kill when used properly.

  14. Just who elected this demented liar. What was she selling that got her put into office, and did she deliver on any promises made?

  15. Her idea of raising the age limit to 21 is actually supported by Trump and some Republicans. Considering the fact that the average White Racist Maniac is 21 or under this makes more than perfect sense. Recent Psychological studies prove that young men under 21 do not realize what the consequences of their actions will bring either short term or long term. The Military has known this for centuries and how easy it is to brain wash young men into mindless killing robotic machines unremorseful of even the most heinous of acts. And I might add murdering masses of innocent civilians certainly falls under that category whether they are in the military or not.

    • White racist maniac is an apt description of yourself vlad. You support the ongoing genocide of blacks being performed by planned parenthood.

      • 70 per cent of all maniac killings are done either by White Supremacists or White Religious Fanatics. That’s a fact JWM you cannot lie your way out of.

        And as far as abortions that is an individuals right to privacy something you do not support in your wish for a Right Wing Gestapo State. If you were such a moralist you would then volunteer to adopt all these unwanted minority children but the Far Right would be the last to adopt minority children that is a given. In other words your the worst form of hypocrite.

        • So, as I said. You are supporting a genocide knowing that it is black babies being slaughtered. Dress it anyway you wish.

          The truth is you’re a blood thirsty, savage, racist. You’re not fooling us. Maybe yourself, but not us.

        • Out of the 251 supposed mass shoots to datein 2019 (4 or more victims) , most of the shooters are NOT white boys. They do seem to own the prize for most victims at once but as a percent of the population, crazy white boys are underrepresented .

        • quote—————-George says:
          August 20, 2019 at 18:09
          Out of the 251 supposed mass shoots to datein 2019 (4 or more victims) , most of the shooters are NOT white boys. They do seem to own the prize for most victims at once but as a percent of the population, crazy white boys are underrepresented .————quote

          Sorry Georgie but you cannot lie your way out of the fact that 70 per cent OF ALL I REPEAT ALL mass shootings are caused by White Racists and White Religious Fanatics. You can try and just make stuff up as you go along but the stats keep coming back to haunt you and expose the truth.

        • And this is from a self-identified PoC who in reality is whiter than Ali G and the rest of his West Staynes Massive.

          Ali G is one of Sascha Baron Cohen’s alter egos other than Borat. West Staynes is a fairly wealthy part of London.

        • Neither JWM nor anyone has to “lie their way out of” anything. You are simply, as usual, factually incorrect.

        • My dear Vlad, unfortunately your racism is causing blindness to yourself. Sometimes a mirror is hard to look into. Yes, the heavily covered mass shootings of 10 or more are committed by white individuals. But using your statistics of shootings involving 4 or more victims would switch those scales to the black shooters. The city of Chicago alone has at least 1 – 2 of these weekly and that is solely in Chicago. We do not see the press coverage of those as they are “routine”. And unfortunately, the overwhelming number of those victims are black.

    • Vlad, if those under 21 can’t evaluate the effects of their decisions, then they have no business voting, conducting business, joining the military or buying a car or home. Those all require responsibility and informed decision-making.

  16. All these goof balls who attack innocent people are incited by our Commie President with his stupid racist remarks, regarding Ethnic, Religious groups. See what he has to say at his next Rally with his 29% Gestapo followers.

      • No he lives in the real world JW its you who live in a fantasy world. Try listening to Herr Drumpfs speeches some time and his glazed eyed Gestapo Followers screaming “send her back” because she was a woman of color even though she was an American citizen that just did not politically happen to agree with them. The Glazed eyed followers of Hitler screamed the same epitaphs. My how little the Far Right has changed since then its just now in our country instead of Germany. Shout Sieg Heil Herr Drumpf JW it will make you feel like the good old days are here again.

        • You openly support the slaughter of innocent black babies and you point the finger of racism at others.

          You’re the type of evil that would have made hitler afraid. You’re a sick, sick, boy vlad.

        • Good lord, you may very well be the most impressive, manipulated, two-faced, hypocritical, mindless idiot I’ve ever seen on any forum anywhere. You should be proud.

    • You clearly havent listened to his actual words, just the incorrect summaries from the mass media. Try reading actual transcripts.

  17. to J Gibbon
    Not true we have and it sickens normal people who believe in American values and know that it was immigrants who built this country and made it great not some racist in a red tie screaming racism and bigotry.

    • vlad. You’re not a normal person. Unless in your world normal people support a racist genocide against blacks.

      Normal people recoil in disgust from savages like you.

      • jwm, stop feeding this troll. He/she/they live only to get a reaction, and you keep giving it to him/her/them on a silver platter.

        What’s the best way to quiet a spoiled child? Ignore him as he stamps his feet in the corner.

        Vlad’s nothing more than a person with time on his/her/their hands, and apparently he/she/they have received satisfaction from the attention everyone gives. Every time Vlad farts, everyone jumps and shouts.

        We only need to ignore him/her/them.

  20. While most people can imbibe in reasonable amounts of alcohol without any particular problem, for some reason American Indians, the senator claims or claimed to be one, are a seeming exception. Might this systemic inability to imbibe in alcohol be the source of her passing strange ideas, proposals? One wonders, as they simply a display of a conspicious lack of sense.

  22. Those who vote for these Democrat Lunatics and those who don’t bother to vote deserve the punishment that they will bring when they’re in power.

  23. Please tell me, how many guns are in the USA and what percentage are used in murders. Lets not count suicides.

    • Quick top of the head maths would indicate 1 in 10,000 firearms would be used for all firearm deaths. Since about a quarter to a third of these deaths are not suicides, that makes the rate to one in 30,000 to one in 40,000 guns used for all non-suicide deaths by firearm. Extrapolated in a low-to-mid estimate of 400 million firearms that produces a high-end estimate of 10,000 to 13,350 (slight rounding) guns used for murder. Of course, in some locations the guns may be used several times

      • Thank you
        I don’t know where your numbers come from,and would like to know, but thank you. If the numbers are correct it gives me some good material to use when speaking to anti gunners.

        • To be honest, it was a guess based on 40,000 firearms deaths annually, of which a quarter to a third are non-suicides. I picked a low to middle estimate of the number of firearms in the US which is said to be 300 million to 600 million. The rest was logic and maths. The high end estimate of murder guns is based on one death per gun.

  25. Fauxahontas, Lieawatha, Bat Shit Crazy Horse, Chief Spreading Bullshit, Lays With Unions, or whatever our most famous 1/1024th Native American Senator goes by this week, would, by her own voice and actions, essentially violate her oath of office upon making it. In fact, she’ violated a similar oath she made when taking her Senate seat. That oath, like the oath so many of us took, whether we were in the Military or Federal civil service, we all said we’ll “…Protect and Defend the Constitution of the United States of America, From All Enemies Both Foreign and Domestic.” That oath means we’ll protect and defend All of the Constitution and subsequent Bill of Rights, not just the parts we agree with. The oath doesn’t contain a check list of things we may/or may not agree with. It’s an All or None oath, and a None statement sends you packing.
    A part of that Constitution contains, via the Bill of Rights, “…the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” One may not agree with it, but one’s oath binds one to protect that right from all enemies inside and outside the country, and to perform no action that takes that right away from the people. Doing so violates the oath you swore to do faithfully.
    Every Congress Critter proposing an sponsoring legislation infringing upon that right is blatantly and openly violating their Oath of Office, and they should be reprimanded for that breach of faith swiftly and without mercy by their respective house whether they are representatives or senators. For that matter the State’s governors, both legislations, judiciary and all of the municiple leadership as well, swore that oath, and if they’re breaking their oath, face reprimand and punishment too.
    None of the laws passed from the NFA on down to today’s proposals succeeded in their goal of crime reduction. Every single law restricting gun ownership has been Unconstitutional and an infringment upon the people’s right to keep and bear arms. Period.

    • Don’t you know? She had her fingers crossed behind her back, so the promises are worthless.

  26. the words “…off the reservation” accompanied by a picture of Elizabeth Warren. I see what you did there.

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