NSSF: Aiming for Accuracy

The New York Times Errs on Guns and Mexico

With its editorial "Death and American Guns in Mexico" on June 25, The Times misinformed its readers about a host of topics: federally licensed firearm retailers, the guns they sell, Mexican gun violence and the tracing of guns used in Mexican drug crimes.

The Times’ editorial starts out . . . "Drug-related murders in Mexico doubled last year, to 6,200, as cartels fight for the American addict’s dollar while relying on American gun dealers for their weapons."

For The Times to make this sweeping accusation casting federally licensed firearms retailers as the cause of the violence is a real reach and maligns small-business owners who follow the law, perform required federal background checks for all retail sales and sell firearms to responsible hunters, target shooters and those who choose to keep a gun for self-protection.

Clearly, it is the drug cartels and drug abusers who are the direct links to the violence, not law-abiding firearms retailers.

The Times implies that all gun shops and pawn brokers near the border—some 6,700 of them, all federally licensed—are corrupt, which is absurd. The truth is that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives relies on retailers to provide important information to federal law enforcement to help fight gun trafficking and illegal purchasing by cartel representatives and middlemen.

For nearly a decade, retailers have been receiving training to help them better detect and prevent illegal straw purchases through a joint federal-industry program called Don't Lie for the Other Guy. Such training is valuable because illegal purchases can be difficult to deter. The GAO report acknowledges: "Because the straw purchasers are legitimately qualified to purchase guns, they can be difficult to identify by gun shop owners and clerks, absent obvious clues that would signify a straw purchase is happening." The program’s educational materials help retailers spot behavioral and verbal clues that raise red flags and give the seller pause to question whether the transaction is legitimate and, if in doubt, to deny the sale and contact ATF.

Additionally, this same program warns anyone who might be thinking of making a quick buck as a straw purchaser that it is a felony to do so. Last week in a $500,000 effort, Don't Lie for the Other Guy was rolled out in the Rio Grande Valley for the second year and in Houston to drive home the point that there are serious penalties associated with illegal purchasing, which includes up to 10 years in jail and up to $250,000 in fines. In the coming months, the campaign will be launched in Tucson, El Paso and San Diego. Jail time is a strong deterrent and the warning will cause potential straw purchasers to think twice before entering a gun shop and lying to the clerk and also when filling out the federal Form 4473 that is required before any transaction can take place. NSSF would support legislation to require mandatory minimum sentences for anyone convicted of illegally straw purchasing a firearm.

In its editorial, The Times cites the misleading "90 percent of guns traced" statistic from the recently released Government Accountability Office report on combating gun trafficking, which NSSF has previously taken to task. From The Times: "A new report to Congress traces over 90 percent of guns recovered in Mexican drug crimes in the last three years back across the border . . . "

The Times has it backwards. Some 24 percent of guns seized in Mexican drug crimes were traced, with only 22 percent having originated in the United States. Here’s the math . . .

Mexico selectively chooses guns for tracing that are most likely to have come from the United States; however, only a fraction of all guns seized by Mexican authorities are submitted for tracing. For example, about 30,000 firearms were seized in Mexico last year, of which only 7,200 were submitted to ATF for tracing, according to the GAO report. Of those, 6,700 were found to have originated in the United States. That means 76 percent of the firearms recovered in Mexico were NOT even traced, and it’s unclear where those guns came from. Even the Department of Homeland Security questioned the report’s use of misleading figures involving guns seized and traced, and that’s right in the GAO report, though not mentioned by The New York Times.

Some media have reported that some grenades and rocket launchers were seized. Such military weapons, which are certainly not available commercially in the United States, came from stocks in Central American countries or through foreign military sales, according to ATF.

The average age of guns recovered in Mexico and traced to the United States has remained at 14 years old, according to ATF, which is inconsistent with the idea that waves of new guns are flooding from manufacturers to retailers and across the border into Mexico.

The Times: "What is also clear is that the American gun dealers . . . are supplying increasingly powerful military style weapons as the cartel wars intensify."

The GAO report states that in 2008 only about 25 percent of firearms seized and traced were of that type, which amounts to about six percent of the number of firearms seized that year. It’s unlikely that today gun traffickers are having much success in acquiring common semi-automatic rifles, given that these modern sporting firearms are the hottest selling civilian rifle being sold in America and that backorders for many months exist for them at most gun stores.

One way drug cartels are acquiring guns is that in recent years as many as 150,000 Mexican soldiers, 17,000 last year alone, defected to go work for the cartels, bringing their American-made, service-issued firearms with them.

The Times: "Congress must repeal restrictions that prevent a national gun registry and bar local enforcement agencies from sharing in federal tracing information."

Here The Times takes the occasion to bring up restrictions on gun owners it has long advocated. Of course, it’s unthinkable that Congress would allow a national gun registry, which it currently prohibits, and risk the political backlash of the estimated 85 million gun owners in the country who understand that their Second Amendment rights should not be curtailed because of events happening in another country. Registration is a necessary precursor to confiscation, which is precisely what many politicians ultimately would do with many classes of firearms.

What anti-gun legislators are attempting to do, however, is repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which currently restricts the use of federal gun trace information to law enforcement agencies in order to protect the integrity of their investigations and the lives of officers. Contrary to The Times’ assertion, this tracing information can be shared between departments for investigative purposes. Those who would repeal Tiahrt want municipalities to have access to this sensitive information in order to launch nuisance lawsuits against retailers. Repealing Tiahrt is not going to happen, we are told, though there may be some changes to language in the amendment, which is reauthorized on yearly basis.

And neither The Times nor those who support repealing Tiahrt can show one police chief who was denied by ATF trace data about their community. The Times also ignores that ATF has provided Mexican law enforcement the ability to conduct traces electronically.

One key point The Times left out in its eagerness to promote gun control as the answer to Mexico’s drug-violence problems is corruption at all levels of Mexican law enforcement. Jess Ford, GAO’s director of international affairs and trade, told the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee, "Despite President [Felipe] Calderon's efforts to combat organized crime, extensive corruption at the federal, state and local levels of Mexican law enforcement impedes U.S. efforts to develop effective and dependable partnerships with Mexican government entities in combating arms trafficking."

Progress is being made, however, as untrustworthy employees are purged and the cartels are pressured more than ever, yet government officials acknowledge in the report that "implementing . . . reforms will take considerable time, and may take years to effect comprehensive change."

So it’s not 90 percent of Mexican guns used in crime that are coming from the United States. That’s just flat-out wrong. And the misleading "90 percent of all guns traced to Mexican drug crimes are coming from the United States" must always be clarified with "only about 22 percent of guns seized by Mexican authorities are proven to come from the United States." That’s a huge difference.

GAO study on Mexican violence promotes misinformation of firearms trafficking

The General Accounting Office (GAO) of the United States has released a study on firearms trafficking and violence in Mexico.

The report, which NSSF is still reviewing, appears to be rife with error.  Consider the following claim: “According to U.S. and Mexican government officials, these firearms have been increasingly more powerful and lethal in recent years. For example, many of these firearms are high-caliber and high-powered, such as AK and AR-15 type semiautomatic rifles.”

These rifles, of course, are no more “powerful” or “lethal” than any other lawful rifle, and they fire ammunition that is considerably less powerful than other hunting rifles.

The report has also led to a revival of false allegations regarding recovered firearms in Mexico.  As the trade association for the firearms industry, we believe it is important to set the record straight (and separate fact from fiction):

Some 29,000 firearms were recovered in Mexico last year, of which approximately 5,000 were traced to U.S. sources.  That means more than 80 percent of the firearms recovered in Mexico were not traced to the United States. Furthermore, according to the ATF, those firearms traced were originally sold at retail not recently, but on average 14 years earlier. This is completely inconsistent with any notion that a flood of newly purchased firearms are being illegally smuggled over the border into Mexico. And let's not forget, no retail firearms sale can be made in the U.S. until after a criminal background check on the purchaser has been completed.

In recent years as many as 150,000 Mexican soldiers, 17,000 last year alone, defected to go work for the drug cartels -- bringing their American-made service-issued firearms with them. It has also been well documented that the drug cartels are illegally smuggling fully automatic firearms, grenades and other weapons into Mexico from South and Central America. Such items are not being purchased at retail firearms stores in the United States.

It should be noted, even the Department of Homeland Security (following a review of the GAO report) found the statistics cited to be misleading. The Department specifically called into question the GAO claim that "87 percent of firearms seized by Mexican authorities and traced over the past 5 years originated in the United States." The DHS responded to this claim by saying, "DHS officials believe that the 87 percent statistic is misleading as the reference should include the number of weapons that could not be traced. Numerous problems with the data collection and sample population render this assertion as unreliable (page 69)."

Although it’s understandable that Mexican authorities and sympathetic American agencies are frustrated with cartel-related violence, it is wrong for anyone to blame the Second Amendment and America’s firearms industry for those problems.

Members of the firearms industry take seriously the criminal acquisition and misuse of their products. This is why our industry supports the Southwest Border Violence Reduction Act of 2009, sponsored by Sen. Bingaman (D-NM), and will continue to work cooperatively with law enforcement. For nearly a decade, our industry has partnered with the ATF in a national campaign called Don’t Lie for the Other Guy that makes the public aware that it is a serious crime to illegally straw purchase a firearm. The program also helps ATF to educate firearms retailers to be better able to detect and prevent illegal straw purchases. Senior executives from NSSF will be continuing the acclaimed Don’t Lie campaign next week in both the Rio Grande Valley (Texas) and Houston (Texas).

Going through the full GAO report will take some time, but no one should be under any illusions; from what we’ve read so far, facts take a backseat to unfounded allegations and hyperbole.

Reaching Out to Outdoor Media

The writers, editors, publishers and TV/radio hosts that promote hunting and target shooting, and otherwise help publicize the image of responsible gun owners, remain critical to the future of our sports.

That's why NSSF makes it a point during the year to attend the major outdoor media conferences of such organizations as the venerable Outdoor Writers Association of  America, the relatively new and growing Professional Outdoor Media Association and  the largest regional group, the Southeastern Outdoor Press Association, among  others. These annual conferences provide an opportunity for NSSF to network with media professionals and remind them to utilize NSSF as a resource for information and research on firearms, hunting, shooting, safety, legislation and wildlife conservation.

NSSF makes presentations to the membership on topical and sometimes contentious issues. Current topics include that the eating of game meat taken with traditional ammunition does not pose a health risk to humans, and that the  term "assault weapon" is a political, and inaccurate, term used by gun-ban advocates to describe what has become the "modern sporting rifle."

We want the media to base their articles, columns and shows on accurate information so that their readers can have a solid understanding of the issues that affect their right to own firearms and their use of them to hunt and target shoot without encountering barriers.

Some have said that the influence of outdoor media is in decline due to the economic challenges media outlets everywhere face. Perhaps that is true in print media, as newspapers shed outdoors coverage and, unfortunately, the jobs of those journalists who provided that content to an avid readership for so many years. But that loss is, to an extent, balanced by increasing online content in e-zines, e-newsletters and blogs and on video sites developed both by professional media and citizen journalists who report, comment and enthuse about firearms and their use.

No one quite knows where the future of information delivery is headed, as author and social media expert Paul Gillin told the audience at the NSSF Shooting Sports Summit last week, but no matter where it's headed those, like NSSF, who rely on that media to tell accurate stories about often misunderstood subjects--such as gun ownership and hunting--need to stay in touch with the individuals who provide the content. And not just by e-mail or text message.

Recently, Google CEO Eric Schmidt in a speech at Carnegie Mellon's commencement ceremony told graduates, many of whom were about to receive freshly printed degrees as computer scientists, to remember to turn off their computers and cell phones occasionally so that they could spend time on something even more important: building relationships face to face.

That is NSSF's goal at these media conferences. Over the years, we've found that it's the relationships with individuals who share a common passion for hunting and the shooting sports that endure and provide a stable center around which the outdoor communications world swirls.

NSSF will be attending the OWAA Conference, which begins this weekend in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and will be at the POMA Conference in St. Louis next month, with attendance at other conferences to follow later in the year.

Day 2 at the Shooting Sports Summit

It was a busy day yesterday packed with strategies and ideas suggested by attendees in the area of Youth Programs, Retention and Recruitment/Reactivation for hunters and shooters. The best of those strategies were selected in a polling at the end of the day and will serve as a directional template for Task Force 20/20 going forward. 

Today Day 2 of the Summit will consider the issues of Access and Opportunity and the all-important Coordinating Efforts, along with the potential formation of an organization that will consider new funding opportunities to help fuel the marketing campaigns that were suggested in yesterday's sessions on Youth Programs, Recruitment and Retention/Reactivation.

This morning's keynote speaker is Paul Gillin, author of "Secrets of Social Media Marketing, who, given the importance of promoting hunting and target shooting to youth audiences and building communities of support, should be of major interest to the Summit audience.

Again, live streaming of Paul Gillin's talk and other segments of the Summit are available at www.nssf.org.

Keynote Speaker Clyde Fessler

Clyde Fessler, the man who led the resurgence of Harley-Davidson, said these three questions helped the company restructure itself and place it on the road to profitability:

--Who are you?

--Who are your customers?

--What do your customers want?

And added, "Sell the experience."

All important things for the hunting and shooting community to consider as it looks to expand participation over the next five years.

The Shooting Sports Summit Opens

The shooting Sports Summit is underway. In opening remarks, NSSF President Steve Sanetti said, "Unity and action are the themes of this Summit."

The keynote speech this morning will be delivered by Clyde Fessler, former vice president of business development for Harley Davidson who is credited with spearheading the re-branding of that company and broadening H-D's appeal to younger generations. That success story should resonate with this audience, which will be considering ways to attract more youth to participate in hunting and target shooting.

Following the Fessler speech, the Summit kicks off with its first presentation--Youth Programs--one of five areas that attendees will focus on during the two days here. Three areas--Youth Programs, Recruitment and Retention/Reactivation--will be considered today, with two more--Access/Opportunity and Coordinating Efforts--tomorrow.

Each area has a strategic initiative and three to four "questions" that will be discussed in roundtable meetings. Each roundtable will generate suggested action plans that all attendees will have a chance to vote for through an electronic poll.

For Youth Programs, the strategic initiative is . . .

"Recruit new youth participants and retain (reactivate and develop) current youth participants by following the awareness-to-adoption process . . . by helping stakeholders develop a model for recruitment and retention efforts that link R&R programs . . . include youth and families . . . and that focuses on long-term hunter, shooter and archer development."

For Recruitment, the strategic initiative is . . .

"To target the group most likely to respond to a marketing campaign. This will produce the most new hunters and shooters over five years in the most efficient manner. Research concludes the top target group is families of shooters and hunters."

For Retention/Reactivation, the strategic initative is . . .

"To retain existing hunters and shooters; reengage lapsed hunters and shooters."

For Access and Opportunity, the strategic initiative is . . .

"To improve access to quality hunting lands and shooting facilities to ensure that the increased demand generated through the efforts of other task force working groups (a 20% increase over the next 5 years) is met with commensurate increases in opportunity."

For Coordination of Efforts, the strategic initiative is . . .

"Develop a plan for national coordination among federal and state agencies, conservation and shooting organizations, media, and industry partners to sustain and enhance hunting and the shooting sports."

Remember that live streaming video of certain segments of the Summit will be available at www.nssf.org, including the Fessler speech.   Here is the Webcast schedule.

The Shooting Sports Summit

The National Shooting Sports Foundation will convene the 2009 Shooting Sports Summit tomorrow to tackle major challenges facing stakeholders associated with hunting and the shooting sports.

This meeting is the next step in a year-long process that began at last year's Summit in Colorado Springs, where new research presented on hunter and shooter participation and retention served as a wake-up call for attendees. A comprehensive study, "The Future of Hunting and the Shooting Sports," showed that issues affecting hunting and shooting such as urbanization, aging demographics and access were growing more critical and that, if not responded to, could in time have an unalterable negative effect on the great pastimes that millions of Americans enjoy. Remedial action clearly is necessary, and those attending the Summit will get a clear sense of the global warming-type urgency that is being associated with these issues.

Following the 2008 Summit, Task Force 20/20 was formed comprising leaders from hunting and shooting sports organizations, federal and state wildlife agencies, the firearms industry and outdoor media to consider recommendations that were offered in the study. After several meetings, five key areas were identified that called out for "action plans": youth programs, recruitment, retention/reactivation, access and opportunity, and coordination of efforts.

These will be the areas of focus at the Summit in Weston, Fla., where in roundtable sessions stakeholders will reach a consensus on strategies to achieve the goal of increasing participation in hunting and shooting by 20 percent each over the next five years. "I hope everyone feels not only a sense of responsibility but a sense of urgency as we go into the Summit to present to the participants a plan of action for their comment and their approval, and then we need to solicit additional participation from all stakeholder segments to carry out the plan," said Michael Callahan, lead facilitator of Task Force 20/20.

Reaching this stage of cooperation with so many diversified groups has not been an easy task, and some probably thought it couldn't be done. But it has been. We can only hope that next week's Summit becomes a watershed moment, and that future generations of shooters and hunters will identify it as the turning point that allowed hunting and shooting to overcome the considerable and complex challenges it faced.

Keep up to speed with what's happening at this important meeting by reading this blog and visiting www.nssf.org, where you can watch streaming video of the presentations (but not of the roll-up-the-sleeves roundtable discussions) and see video interviews with participants and photos.

To get a sense of the work that went on leading up to the Summit, watch this video. Also, a free download of the "The Future of Hunting and the Shooting Sports" research is available.

Video Promotes A Better Understanding of Hunting

Nicely produced video from California Waterfowl about hunting's place in a balanced eco-system. A little more than six minutes long.

To reach kids in grammar and middle school with a similar message, NSSF makes available to teachers free of charge three videos and accompanying activity guides about the hunter's role in wildlife conservation.

Affirmation of the Gun Bloggers

If you want to find out what's going on in the world of firearms and Second Amendment rights, and get a dose of attitude along with it, just tap into the stream of commentary coming from the gun bloggers. They are out there heating up the blogosphere with fact, opinion, political rants and product raves. Any gun blogger would tell you this is old news, but it seems "mainstream media" is just catching on to this online phenomenon. At the NRA's 138th annual convention in Phoenix, Patrik Jonsson of the Christian Science Monitor wrote a story that is giving national exposure to the growing influence of these "new media" watchdogs.

Mr. Jonsson didn't just take the bloggers' word for how important they are (although you can bet they told him), or how they help set the record straight (just as this blog does) when inaccuracies appear in the mainstream media. No, Mr Jonsson interviewed media experts who confirmed that indeed the bloggers are a significant part of the current sea change in information distribution and consumption. His experience at the NRA show mirrors what NSSF has seen in recent years at the SHOT Show, where the number of bloggers has increased yearly and where NSSF, recognizing their value, provides them with press privileges identical to outdoor and mainstream media.

Gun bloggers were out in such force at the NRA convention that they rivaled mainstream media in attendance, causing Jonsson to observe, "Experts say that ratio at a major national news event featuring a panoply of GOP stars — including John McCain and Mitt Romney — presents a stunning affirmation of the rise of a mix of both partisan and fiercely independent and sometimes downright cranky “New Media,” marking its growing power to not only cover breaking news, but set the tone for political policy — and, in the case of Second Amendment rights, even the direction of the NRA itself."

Brian Anse Patrick, a professor of communications at the University of Toledo in Ohio, is quoted in the article, saying, "Mass media has an audience where news goes in one ear and out the other." For gun bloggers, “this is an identity issue, a behavioral thing, instead of mere attitude and a piece of news. You have these communities all over the places that’s essentially gun culture: autonomous, but coordinated, very powerful and very effective."

Even Josh Sugarmann of the anti-gun Violence Policy Center agreed, saying, “If you compare the pro-gun activity in the blogosphere versus the pro-gun-control activity, the scales have just tipped tremendously in their favor. There’s much more engagement, more involvement, and they clearly have more free time than people on our side of the issue do." The last part demonstrates that pro-gun bloggers are not the only ones who can be acerbic to the other side.

While nobody is saying that the readership of gun bloggers rivals mainstream media, it is growing and, as the story points out, the bloggers' rise is coinciding with the change of opinion among Americans who now favor less gun control (see previous post in this blog).

Gun bloggers even had their own mini-conference in Phoenix, the 2nd Annual Second Amendment Blog Bash, and later this year there is another gathering called the Gun Blogger Rendezvous, which will take place in Reno.

Polls Show Fading Support for Gun Control

A number of recent polls show that Americans are growing increasingly less supportive of new restrictions to regulate firearms.

The Houston Chronicle reported this week that the shift in public opinion is so strong that a potential ban on so-called "assault weapons" -- once backed by 3 in 4 Americans -- "now rates barely 1 in 2."

Said Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of the Gallup Poll, "Every bit of data is showing us that Americans are getting more conservative about gun control."

Here are results from some recent polls:

ABC News-Washington Post (conducted in April): "For the first time in ABC/Post polls, a clear majority of Americans, 57 percent, don't think stricter gun laws would in fact reduce violent crime. And 61 percent -- a new high, and again the first substantial majority -- say enforcement of existing gun laws would accomplish more than passing new, stricter ones."

Pew Research Center (April): For the first time in a Pew Research survey, nearly as many people believe it is more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns (45 percent) than to control gun ownership (49 percent). As recently as a year ago, 58 percent said it was more important to control gun ownership while 37 percent said it was more important to protect the right to own guns.

NBC News-Wall Street Journal (conducted April 23-26): 53 percent of Americans said they favor "a law to ban the sale of assault weapons and semiautomatic rifles," compared to 75 percent in 1991.

CNN (April): 39 percent of Americans said they favor stricter gun laws, compared to 54 percent in 2001.

Gallup (October - released in April): 49 percent of Americans said that laws covering the sale of firearms should be made stricter, compared 78 percent in 1990.