The National Shooting Sports Federation, or NSSF, isn’t a new organization in the least. It’s been around for a while and represents the firearm industry itself. It’s not there to represent the interests of individual shooters, but the companies that make our guns and ammo.
However, it does tend to fight for our rights because if we can’t buy guns and ammo, the group’s membership has big problems.
But the NSSF has long flown under the radar in a lot of ways. The NRA is the one, after all, usually accused of representing gun makers and not people–usually by people who have no idea what they’re talking about, mind you, but still–and that’s shielded the trade group.
Now, the media is starting to target them instead.
Abusiness trade group representing 10,000 gunmakers, dealers and other firearm firms is emerging as a rising force in the US and starting to eclipse – in some respects – the might of the powerful but scandal-plagued National Rifle Association.
Meet the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry’s conservative and aggressive lobbying group. Its range of activities are broad but always geared to zealously and single-mindedly preserving and extending the power of the gun industry.
It has been lobbying Congress to pass bills that would block financial institutions from using environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria in making investment and loan decisions to protect gun companies’ bottom lines.
Yes, how awful that a group representing an industry would lobby politicians to block moves that would hurt that industry.
Terribly dreadful of them, isn’t it?
I’m pretty sure you can tell how this is going to go, but let’s continue anyway.
Meanwhile, gun manufacturers are relying on this same group to mount legal challenges to several state laws that limit the gun industry’s highly prized and unique protection from contentious liability laws enacted by Congress in 2005.
…
“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.
The long and the short of it is that the NSSF stands for gun companies and, by extension, our gun rights. People like The Guardian don’t like that, so they have to step up and demonize the group.
After all, they did that with the NRA, and the NRA is now reeling in a lot of ways. The media likely figures they played a role in that. Of course, had none of the scandalous behavior at the NRA taken place, there wouldn’t be an issue in the first place. You can’t find dirt if there’s no dirt to find.
But they found some and now they’re trying to demonize the NSSF in the same way, likely in hopes that they can cause problems for the group.
Yet I think they’re going to be disappointed.
The truth is that no one on this side really cares what The Guardian thinks of the NSSF. They stand for our rights and do so valiantly.
What the NSSF’s real “sin” is, though, is that they’re picking up where the NRA has been seeming slacking. For a long time, anti-gunners have thought that if they could disable the NRA, they’d have a clear path toward gun control.
I warned them that they were wrong, as did a lot of others, but they didn’t listen.
The NSSF, however, just kept doing what they’ve been doing, and our rights are being preserved despite the anti-gunners’ best efforts.
