Speaker 1: This is me eat your podcast coming at you shirtless,
Speaker 1: severely bitten in my case underwear. Listen, don't make you
Speaker 1: eat podcast. You can't predict anything, Okay. Larry Keen from
Speaker 1: National Shooting Sports Foundation, Larry, are you? Are you cool?
Speaker 1: If we go through a couple of things here first,
Speaker 1: they don't like, they don't necessarily involve you, but free
Speaker 1: to weigh in because we gotta do a couple of
Speaker 1: things like a lot of like us some listener email,
Speaker 1: gotta take care of some business, yeah, house cleaning. Janice
Speaker 1: had used the word, oh yeah, he had used the
Speaker 1: word accidental discharge, and a lot of people, particularly service members,
Speaker 1: rode in to say that you can't say that they
Speaker 1: go by negligent disc arch. There's no there's no accidents.
Speaker 1: They they there's military dudes, very emphatic on that point.
Speaker 1: Due to your own negligence, you know, you don't get
Speaker 1: to say that they just cut right to they cut
Speaker 1: right the negligence. You know, like in a prior life,
Speaker 1: i UH defended gun companies in product liability cases and
Speaker 1: so that the term accidental discharge or a D was
Speaker 1: used in those cases, and that was often you know,
Speaker 1: the firearm discharged because of the negligence or the um
Speaker 1: of the owner or the user, not because any design
Speaker 1: defect or manufacturing defect. But they would typically be called
Speaker 1: in the legal parliament says a d s are accidental discharge.
Speaker 1: But I think the point is well made that it's
Speaker 1: really negligence on the part of the person using the firearm.
Speaker 1: It doesn't go off by itself. Somebody has to pull
Speaker 1: the trigger. Several marines wrote in about it must be
Speaker 1: something that there must be something they talk about fair
Speaker 1: But that's the master gunny sergeants is drilled into your
Speaker 1: head in boot camp that you are responsible for the
Speaker 1: terminal resting place every round that leaves your rifle, and
Speaker 1: you are a maggot. You're a maggot. I like that
Speaker 1: the terminal resting place of every round that leaves your rifle. Yep,
Speaker 1: terminal resting place. That sounds a cob. We have a
Speaker 1: we have a very dark sense of humorous marines. Another thing,
Speaker 1: we got a lot of people writing in about we're
Speaker 1: talking about button bucks um and people asking like does
Speaker 1: a button buck shed anything meaning an antler? Yeah, good question,
Speaker 1: Typically not, but like we had read this thing where
Speaker 1: we had read this thing where you're saying, like it
Speaker 1: hasn't been known to happen in the state of Virginia,
Speaker 1: but it's known to happen to other places. But then
Speaker 1: we had people, including a lot of biologists and dear
Speaker 1: specialists right in to say, certainly happens, it happens in Virginia,
Speaker 1: and a lot of guys emailed us folk, I shouldn't
Speaker 1: say a lot of handful of guys emailed us photos
Speaker 1: of button buck sheds which looks like a little bone disc.
Speaker 1: Some guys actually wrote in who were doing a deer
Speaker 1: trapping study while listening to the podcast and started examining
Speaker 1: some button bucks, and they had some findings too. But
Speaker 1: it says that like early born fawns who have very
Speaker 1: good nutrition and tend to be the larger size, button
Speaker 1: bucks will actually form a little thing that they cast off.
Speaker 1: But the antler don't want to call it an antler,
Speaker 1: the little nubbins the disk that has cast off, it
Speaker 1: doesn't seem to cast it off in a way that's
Speaker 1: tied to photo period. It's like photo period is length
Speaker 1: of day, and photo period drives so much, you know,
Speaker 1: drive so much of nature's day length, Like like things
Speaker 1: are gonna happen within a window of time centered around
Speaker 1: day length. And and and then then like micro factors will
Speaker 1: come in. Micro factors can also influence timing. But there's
Speaker 1: a lot of natural cycles that happened in accord you know,
Speaker 1: in accordance to length of day. And he said, normal
Speaker 1: bucks seem to lose their antlers due to photo period.
Speaker 1: They think it's linked to photo period changes, but this
Speaker 1: is just linked to whatever is going on in the
Speaker 1: growth and how much gets there and when it starts
Speaker 1: growing a new antler for button bucks. Um And he said,
Speaker 1: this guy also talked about you ever hear the doppel
Speaker 1: Cops syndrome. Nope, that's so dear. Biologists talk about this.
Speaker 1: He says, unlike adult antlers, which are grown in shed
Speaker 1: based on changing photo period, infant antlers are controlled by
Speaker 1: maturity and hormonal development and not tied to photo period.
Speaker 1: If any antler ever fails to shed doppel cop syndrome,
Speaker 1: the new antler grows around own the original antler from
Speaker 1: the outside rim of the pedicle. He says, Picture your
Speaker 1: meat grinder plugged up with silver skin, squirting meat out
Speaker 1: around the blockage. The resulting grossly misshapen antlers would be
Speaker 1: obvious on any deer that failed to shed those antler buttons.
Speaker 1: Look at that like it good analogy? Um. Another big
Speaker 1: thing in the news, tons of people wrote in about
Speaker 1: the guy a jogger in Fort Collins. Did you guys
Speaker 1: hear about this? Yeah, jog for he's jogging along since
Speaker 1: it's something coming from behind him. It's an eight five
Speaker 1: pound juvenile mountain lion. It attacks him and the guy
Speaker 1: chokes it out. That is a will to live, strangles
Speaker 1: it walks three miles down to trailhead, drives to a hospital,
Speaker 1: you know, talking to the police about what went on.
Speaker 1: They said, and he's got stuff that he wanted them
Speaker 1: to retrieve. When I go up to inspect the site,
Speaker 1: they go up there, dead mountain lion land there. Wow.
Speaker 1: Every guy likes to think he'd do that, but most
Speaker 1: wouldn't strangled it. I like to think he was listening
Speaker 1: to stranglehold. Come on, come on, come on, come on baby?
Speaker 1: Uh speaking all that a in the Great Smokey Mountains
Speaker 1: National Park in Tennessee. You guys hear this story? Nope? There? Yeah,
Speaker 1: crazy story. So you guys know what jin saying is right?
Speaker 1: That's my my question as we get into the story,
Speaker 1: is this now considered inedible for the bear? That's yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot. This story is one of those stories
Speaker 1: that makes its own greaty so great Smokey Mountain National Park, Tennessee.
Speaker 1: Some guys are out. It seems to be I don't
Speaker 1: want to like, I don't wanna, you know, I mean,
Speaker 1: the guy's dead, but I don't want I don't want
Speaker 1: to condemn the guy without knowing. But it's it's The
Speaker 1: insinuation is that they were hunting Jin saying, digging Jin
Speaker 1: saying illegally, and jing sings like a medicinal route. Daniel
Speaker 1: Boone was in the Jin saying business and once lost
Speaker 1: a fortune's worth of Jin saying and it was one
Speaker 1: of the many things that UH seemed to routinely destroy
Speaker 1: Daniel Boone financially. But anyways, these guys are hunting in
Speaker 1: up national hunting Jin singer, didn't digging Jin sang in
Speaker 1: the national park where it's illegal to dig sing. One
Speaker 1: of the guys goes missing. There's two guys. One of
Speaker 1: them goes missing, his buddy can't find him. They find
Speaker 1: him later eating by a bear. Turns out that he
Speaker 1: was scavenged by a bear and actually and had actually
Speaker 1: died of a meth overdose pretty badly scavenged by the bear.
Speaker 1: They had to identify his body by his tattoos. He
Speaker 1: had a school and crossbones tattoo and a C D
Speaker 1: C tattoo, a Confederate battle flag tattoo that said it's
Speaker 1: a redneck thing. Um. But I wonder if the bear
Speaker 1: was shrewd that he would place the needles as a
Speaker 1: cover up. I don't know. And then Mark's brought up
Speaker 1: the idea, like some people brought up, was like what
Speaker 1: happens to a bear who's ingested? Is the bear tripping? Um?
Speaker 1: We talked about one more thing to news like absolutely,
Speaker 1: I'm still trying to get my mind around uh a
Speaker 1: method bear. Yeah. Uh on a not nearly not on
Speaker 1: a not at all funny note. Um. But speaking of bears,
Speaker 1: Wylming just released a really extensive report um on the
Speaker 1: death of an elk hunting guide in Wyoming who was
Speaker 1: killed by a grizzly bear. Uh. The guy a guide,
Speaker 1: a whelming guy, was guiding a client from Florida for
Speaker 1: elk and while they were butcher in um were they're
Speaker 1: butchering and elk? A sal grizzly and a male cub
Speaker 1: charged them, charged them, coming uphill at them, and the
Speaker 1: bear grabbed the first attack the guide um the woman
Speaker 1: guide who had bear spray on his belt. He had
Speaker 1: a bear stray canister on his belt, and he had
Speaker 1: a ten millimeter pistol on his backpack. The client had
Speaker 1: a bottle of a can of pepper spray in his backpack,
Speaker 1: so they can attacked. Suddenly, the guide gets in a
Speaker 1: skirmish with the bear. The client tries to retrieve the
Speaker 1: guides handgun but doesn't know how to operate it. The
Speaker 1: air turns and bites the client on the foot. They
Speaker 1: get into a struggle. The client tries to throw the
Speaker 1: handgun to the guide, it falls short. The bear then
Speaker 1: turns back and attacks the guide. This is where the
Speaker 1: story is so strange? Is it? The clients of it?
Speaker 1: He's been bitten on the foot, and the last he
Speaker 1: sees of the guide, the guide is still on his
Speaker 1: feet struggling with the bear, and the client leaves, goes
Speaker 1: to the horses, rides a horse four hundred yards to
Speaker 1: a hilltop to make a phone call, waits for a
Speaker 1: helicopter to come, and he never goes back. They Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a it's a. I mean, the report
Speaker 1: doesn't draw you know, the reports. It's an exhaustive report,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't say things that you imagine it might
Speaker 1: say about what they means. Um. The next day they
Speaker 1: found the guide and he had the guy was dead. Um.
Speaker 1: In their analysis of footprints and what happened and empty
Speaker 1: bear spray can and his body and other things, they
Speaker 1: believed that the guy did spray the bear with pepper
Speaker 1: spray it ended the attack, but then succumbed to his injuries. Wow.
Speaker 1: Just a heart like kind of a heartbreaking story. Wow, Okay,
Speaker 1: some some lessons to be learned. They're about we always
Speaker 1: talk about where are you know, bear spray is located
Speaker 1: on our body, where the pistols are on our bodies,
Speaker 1: where you lay your rifle down, you know, as you're
Speaker 1: doing something like that in grizzly bear country. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just ordered, I am ordering what do you what's the
Speaker 1: one you have? The airframe? Yeah? An airframe? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I was just ordering one of those. We got into
Speaker 1: talking about UM got into talking about revolvers versus semi autos.
Speaker 1: What I was saying is like at work, we got
Speaker 1: a lot of guys who don't have a lot of
Speaker 1: familiarity with firearms. I feel like anyone who's watched a
Speaker 1: Western I can understand the basic functioning over revolver, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean and that. But this is before
Speaker 1: I even read the report. But I was like just
Speaker 1: articulating this to John Edwards over at his gun shop,
Speaker 1: over at Schnaze. It was like my sort of I'm like,
Speaker 1: I just feel like for us when we're out working
Speaker 1: um up in Alaska, it's just like a thing that
Speaker 1: it's just easy to explain to people who don't no,
Speaker 1: who don't shoot, Um, that's what. That's what. That's what
Speaker 1: I'm fixing to get. No, Larry, Sorry, no need to apologize.
Speaker 1: N SSF. Uh Like when someone like you're at a party,
Speaker 1: You're at a cocktail party and someone says, what's that?
Speaker 1: What's the NSSF. What do you tell them? We are
Speaker 1: the firearms industry's trade association. And then the next question
Speaker 1: is what's the difference between you and the n A
Speaker 1: and the elevator speeches. The dividing line is to checkout
Speaker 1: counter as the trade association. We're focused on the bar
Speaker 1: stock being delivered to the factory to make the firearm
Speaker 1: to the south to the sale to the consumer at retail.
Speaker 1: And that's our that's what we're focused on. That's that's
Speaker 1: our core mission to help the industry grow and prosper UH.
Speaker 1: And the dividing line between US and n A is
Speaker 1: the is the is the checkout counter. They represent gun owners,
Speaker 1: consumers from the industry's point of view, and users, and
Speaker 1: we represent the industry. Uh do industry people are members
Speaker 1: of the NSSF. The companies are members um SO. In
Speaker 1: our membership be about I think the numbers about ten
Speaker 1: thousand members. Now, you know, the ebbs and flows goes
Speaker 1: up after a lot of people joining when they come
Speaker 1: to shot show. Um SO, our members are manufacturers, distributors, retailers, firearms, ammunition,
Speaker 1: scopes and basically anything you can put in on around
Speaker 1: or through a gun for hunting, shooting, increasingly for you know,
Speaker 1: personal protection, self defense, big part of the market. Um.
Speaker 1: Big companies, the biggest names you know that everybody knows
Speaker 1: household names to smaller companies, smaller manufacturers that you know
Speaker 1: most people have never heard of. You guys, they're the
Speaker 1: ten by ten booths at the shot show. You see
Speaker 1: the small little booths, but you know, all the big
Speaker 1: guys started out as small companies at some point. I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people's familiarity comes from Shot Show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's a huge event. As you know,
Speaker 1: as we were talking before, UM exhibitors thirteen miles of
Speaker 1: exhibit space, and if you went to every single booth
Speaker 1: at the show, you could spend twenty two seconds at
Speaker 1: each one. So it's it's a massive Whatever people go
Speaker 1: for the first time they are their reaction is always
Speaker 1: the same. They're blown away, they're shocked, they cannot believe
Speaker 1: the breath and scope and size of the Shot show. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's big. You feel like you can never there's so much.
Speaker 1: You feel like you never get like can look at
Speaker 1: something because there's so much. You know, you always want
Speaker 1: you always to force yourself to focus for a second,
Speaker 1: you do. Yeah, I mean we tell people that you
Speaker 1: have to have a plan, and we have like apps
Speaker 1: for people for the attendees were you know, dealers, buyers,
Speaker 1: plan your show, plan who you want to see, you
Speaker 1: can schedule it. You know. The app, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's a digital map. It will tell you how to
Speaker 1: get from point A to point B. You just plug
Speaker 1: in the booth in the booth number and it'll tell
Speaker 1: you how to get there. Um. And you got to
Speaker 1: plan your time otherwise you just you'll get lost, you know.
Speaker 1: And all of the stuff you see uh on all
Speaker 1: of the various booths. But we try to segment the show. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, we have the law enforcement tactical section, We've
Speaker 1: got firearms and ammunition. We've got other areas where you know,
Speaker 1: we have a new Products center, um, so if you're
Speaker 1: looking for new products, that's where you would go. And
Speaker 1: that's a big popular place. And then we have you know,
Speaker 1: areas where you know it's hunting, clothing and things like that.
Speaker 1: And so we try to segment the show so you
Speaker 1: can be in a particular area and you know, Okay,
Speaker 1: i'm gonna if you're a buyer, I'm gonna talk to
Speaker 1: these firearms guys, then i'm gonna go over here, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna talk to these clothing guys that um, you know,
Speaker 1: in place orders so nothing that there's no sales, direct
Speaker 1: sales that take place. No certainly no cash hellth that's
Speaker 1: not allowed. So it's booking orders um and people looking
Speaker 1: at um, you know, at products. It's it's really a
Speaker 1: primary primarily now the show is really a new product
Speaker 1: introduction and marketing show. Um. It's the largest gathering of
Speaker 1: outdoor media in the world. Uh it's if you took
Speaker 1: out the knives, it would be the largest knife show
Speaker 1: in the world, if you took out if you took out.
Speaker 1: The thing that pulls my mind walking around there is
Speaker 1: uh all the government agencies for foreign governments. We hear
Speaker 1: people talking every language on the planet. I think it's
Speaker 1: something like a hundred countries. Um. We've got uh foreign military,
Speaker 1: foreign law enforcement, foreign exhibitors, foreign attendees from all over
Speaker 1: the place. So we've even had people come from Pakistan. Um,
Speaker 1: we've you know, people from all over Europe, you know
Speaker 1: New Zealand, Uh, Australia, et cetera. Um, we've got lots
Speaker 1: of US military buyers there from all branches and so
Speaker 1: calm folks. They're they're the ones that can't have their
Speaker 1: pictures taken. Funny story about that, but a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago, UH Governor Romney came to see the show
Speaker 1: before or right around the time. He just a little
Speaker 1: bit before he announced he was running, and he wanted
Speaker 1: to come to see the show. And we took him around,
Speaker 1: walked him around the floor for a while. Uh and
Speaker 1: and there were some guys and military guys. They were
Speaker 1: in uniform. You know, it's like, hey, let's get a
Speaker 1: picture with you and govern to romy No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we can't, we can't. Okay, you're not here. This How
Speaker 1: much is the I don't want to ballut too much
Speaker 1: on Shot show, but how much a Shot show? How
Speaker 1: much was it impacted by the War on Terror? Yeah,
Speaker 1: because because we've been like engaged and you know, we've
Speaker 1: been engaged in multiple theaters right for a long time. Yeah. Um,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say in seventeen years. You know, the War
Speaker 1: on Terror impacted the market and that impact of the show.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't like a direct impact, but it just
Speaker 1: seems like it's been such a like just a bewildering
Speaker 1: amount of new technologies getting driven by you know, driven
Speaker 1: by the you know the fact that I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: most Americans kind of lose sight of the fact the
Speaker 1: fact that we've been at war for so long. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The fastest growing part of the show is the taxical
Speaker 1: law enforcement show enforcement. Yeah, so that's that's by far
Speaker 1: the fastest growing part of the show. And I think
Speaker 1: that's a reflection of the changing market. And I think
Speaker 1: that that has driven in part due to um people
Speaker 1: that like marked that served when overseas, came back, left
Speaker 1: the military and you know, if they weren't before, they
Speaker 1: you know, they like to go target shooting, hunting, and
Speaker 1: so but I think that's helps explain the growth of
Speaker 1: the modern sporting rifle popularity. A lot of the people.
Speaker 1: Our survey show that, uh, about half of the people
Speaker 1: that purchase them our current form and military law enforcement.
Speaker 1: And it's actually we have a being on our website
Speaker 1: about the history of the rifle in America, and that
Speaker 1: that rifle would become popular was really predictable because it's
Speaker 1: that's always happened through the history of United States. After
Speaker 1: people serve, they come back, they take up target shooting.
Speaker 1: They're familiar with that platform. Uh, it's comfortable, they like it.
Speaker 1: And so if you look at the growth in the market,
Speaker 1: you know, after every conflict, you'll see, you know, certain
Speaker 1: types of rifles become very popular. People forget that all
Speaker 1: rifles were originally military rights. It is it's cycling. So
Speaker 1: if you look back through the history of wars, after
Speaker 1: you come back from World War One, everyone was using
Speaker 1: bolt action rifles. Well that's the rifle that they were
Speaker 1: familiar with, and that's with them they wanted to take
Speaker 1: back into the woods with them. After World War Two,
Speaker 1: they were using repeating rifles that were using semi automatic rifles,
Speaker 1: and that's what they want to take back in with them.
Speaker 1: And after Korea and after Vietnam, you started to see
Speaker 1: the rise in the use of scopes, which before then
Speaker 1: was kind of antathetical. You know, people at the time,
Speaker 1: if you can use the scope, you're gonna be poaching.
Speaker 1: So as you should kind of see these adoptions of
Speaker 1: these technologies as they kind of go back and forth.
Speaker 1: And it used to be that, you know, for a while,
Speaker 1: civilian technology would kind of drive military technology when it
Speaker 1: comes to small arms, and then it was then it
Speaker 1: was the push that develop of new firearms for the
Speaker 1: military would push back out into the civilian market. We've
Speaker 1: kind of seen that kind of go back around again.
Speaker 1: The military is looking at a lot more commercial off
Speaker 1: the shelf items. Uh, so you're seeing the kind of
Speaker 1: that that cyclic nature of that happening over and over. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not a one way street, um, but to your
Speaker 1: point males are both action rifled. I mean that is
Speaker 1: now considered the ubiquitous deer hunting rifle, right, Like no
Speaker 1: Control group say well that's that's a weapon of war, right,
Speaker 1: But you know it was at one point that I mean,
Speaker 1: it can't be used for for hunting another target, shooting, etcetera.
Speaker 1: So you know, the military does buy commercial products, and
Speaker 1: you know, so it goes, it goes both ways. I mean,
Speaker 1: consumers see what the military law enforcement used and they think,
Speaker 1: well it's good enough for them. That's what I want,
Speaker 1: And so that that ries a lot what happens in
Speaker 1: the commercial market. What I want to do, I want
Speaker 1: to return to this for sure. What all I do
Speaker 1: is I want to do kind of um like cover
Speaker 1: a bunch of brown to do a walk. You want
Speaker 1: a bunch of issues that I think, like particularly things
Speaker 1: that I know that our audience asked about around firearms issues,
Speaker 1: legislation issues, um and try to like do quick snapshots
Speaker 1: and stuff. And one thing because being here in d
Speaker 1: C and you guys have some familiarity in the space.
Speaker 1: One thing. I don't want to dwell on it too long,
Speaker 1: but we've talked a lot about on this show. We've
Speaker 1: covered a lot about Land and Water Conservation Fund, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of this story that doesn't really go away
Speaker 1: right now. You guys are involved, you guys are in
Speaker 1: some way. Yeah, like what is it? What's yours? Like,
Speaker 1: what's your organization's opinion on it? Well, we think, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the challenges for the health of
Speaker 1: the industry is, you know, we need hunters to have
Speaker 1: access and opportunity, and that takes many forms right time,
Speaker 1: but also access to land, particularly out west, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of public land, and so opening up access to
Speaker 1: public lands for hunting, target shooting, fishing, et cetera. Is important. So, uh,
Speaker 1: Landing Water Conservation Fund, we think it's important. We support
Speaker 1: the Land the Public Lands package that UM is in
Speaker 1: the Senate currently. We wished it had passed at the
Speaker 1: end of last year, but we're, you know, remain hopeful
Speaker 1: that we finally get it done. But so we support
Speaker 1: that seventy four UM filed cloaks are on it to
Speaker 1: come up for a vote any day, you know, real soon,
Speaker 1: and we think it passes overwhelmingly. Yeah, it seems to
Speaker 1: have a lot of it seems to have a lot
Speaker 1: of bipartisan support. It might even pass unanimous consent. Right,
Speaker 1: So there was the vote to UM yesterday afternoon, was like,
Speaker 1: so it'll pass and then we'll see what happens in
Speaker 1: the House. So hopefully it passes as well. But we
Speaker 1: think it's important UM. We support it. We have for
Speaker 1: quite a while, particularly within uh L WCF. Then making
Speaker 1: public lands provision something we think it's very important. So
Speaker 1: to to allow to have a funding source to purchase
Speaker 1: UM rights of way and Eastman's, etcetera, UM private land
Speaker 1: to get access to landlocked federal land to open it
Speaker 1: up for more access for hunting and and shooting. So
Speaker 1: what's your what's your litmus like as an organization? What
Speaker 1: is the n SSF litmus on how to fall on issues?
Speaker 1: So like it takes something like the land of water
Speaker 1: conservation flaw and so your perspective on it is UM
Speaker 1: access is good for hunters. Hunters are good for the industry.
Speaker 1: I mean is that good for conservation? Right? So I
Speaker 1: mean so we go back. It all starts from, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of the core function of ansef our mission is
Speaker 1: to promote, protect and preserve hunting and the shooting sports.
Speaker 1: That's right, And from the perspective of the industry as
Speaker 1: the industry's trade association. So that's how we you know,
Speaker 1: that's that's our sort of prism through which we view things,
Speaker 1: and so access and there's no question access and opportunity
Speaker 1: are are critical to promoting, protecting and preserving hunting and
Speaker 1: the shooting sports. As we all know, hunting has been
Speaker 1: on a slow decline for a number of years, and
Speaker 1: so we have a lot of programs and initiatives to
Speaker 1: try to address that and bend that curve. Um like
Speaker 1: the one we just started plus one. But in terms
Speaker 1: of looking at legislation, the devil is always in the details.
Speaker 1: But conceptually, you know, we want to see more public
Speaker 1: land opened up for hunting and the shooting sports. It's
Speaker 1: a big issue out west. Um, so you know, we
Speaker 1: try to balance aquities. We also got to be really
Speaker 1: you know, sort of figure out what what is doable,
Speaker 1: what is achievable legislatively. Um, you know, you can you know,
Speaker 1: I always had the pony on my Christmas list, but
Speaker 1: I didn't always get the pony. In fact, I never
Speaker 1: got the pony. So you bring up the West, But
Speaker 1: I think it's important people to realize. I don't think
Speaker 1: there's a I think I heard. I'm pretty sure this
Speaker 1: is right. There's not a county in the United States
Speaker 1: that hasn't had LWCF projects on it. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't think that maybe I don't know municipal swimming pools,
Speaker 1: like like all kinds of all kinds of outdoor access programs.
Speaker 1: So there's the thing, uh people and robertson fun. It
Speaker 1: feels like this is been like the year of the
Speaker 1: Pittman Roberts and Fund where I feel growing up, you know,
Speaker 1: and like without realizing you're doing anyone that buys guns
Speaker 1: or ammunition certain archery pointment, like you're like paying into
Speaker 1: the fund without knowing it, because when you get your receipt,
Speaker 1: it doesn't say there's it doesn't say that there's a
Speaker 1: thirteen or fourteen percent tax built into it. So you
Speaker 1: can kind of live your life as a shooter and
Speaker 1: and not realize you're doing it. But I don't know why.
Speaker 1: I just feel like there's some like tipping point where
Speaker 1: there's awareness and it's probably it's probably a smart move.
Speaker 1: It just like it seems to be in my world.
Speaker 1: There seems to be a lot more awareness now and
Speaker 1: a lot more reporting on the existence of the fund.
Speaker 1: Well that's I'm glad to hear you think that's the case.
Speaker 1: You know, the industry is try to promote that message.
Speaker 1: We've worked with Fish and Wildlife Service. In fact, a
Speaker 1: couple of years ago, probably more than a couple of now, uh,
Speaker 1: it was a seventy fifth anniversary uh Pittman Robers and
Speaker 1: exercise tax being put in place to try to you know,
Speaker 1: so there was efforts to put information or flyers and
Speaker 1: stickers and on the boxes and then some people purchased
Speaker 1: that they understood I knew that. Um so I think
Speaker 1: that's hopefully bearing some fruit trying to push that message.
Speaker 1: The taxes, you know, it's ten percent on handguns, eleven
Speaker 1: percent on long guns and ammunition, and it's been in
Speaker 1: place since nineteen. Well, the tax actually not one of them.
Speaker 1: It's not there's not one that's thirteen. There's not a
Speaker 1: third percent part not on guns and ammunition. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's thus all exercise tax on a fishing tackle, but
Speaker 1: that goes into a different fund are archery. Archery may
Speaker 1: be higher, I'm not sure, but so that the tax
Speaker 1: actually existed, what happened was the industry asked to have
Speaker 1: the you know, have the funds UM be used for
Speaker 1: conservation because at the time, if you look at the history,
Speaker 1: wildlife was not doing well in the United States. So
Speaker 1: the depths of the SPA, so you know, the industry
Speaker 1: helped fund to loophold and others. UM. You know, the
Speaker 1: creation of wildlife management is a science and that was
Speaker 1: funded by the industry. UH. And in attacks, you know,
Speaker 1: we said, used this tax dollars for this purpose. And
Speaker 1: I think it's now over twelve billion dollars or thereabouts UM.
Speaker 1: And it's the price one of the primary sources of
Speaker 1: conservation funding in the United States, as you know, it's
Speaker 1: collected by Treasury, UH, distributed given to the official wildlife
Speaker 1: goes into the trust fund, which we aren't actually isn't
Speaker 1: technically a trust fund, I guess on the sequestration battle,
Speaker 1: but from a couple of years ago. But then that
Speaker 1: is distributed back out to the states on the formula
Speaker 1: land mass hunting sales. How is the tax like what
Speaker 1: actually is taxed along the ware at what point like
Speaker 1: at the end of the year. You know, it's it
Speaker 1: used to be that the manufacturer had to pay the
Speaker 1: tax twice a month and three times in September for
Speaker 1: firearms and ammunition. When other when the tax was supplied
Speaker 1: to other goods like archery and such, they got to
Speaker 1: pay quarterly. So a number of years ago actually we
Speaker 1: UM got legislation passed to change the payment scheduled to
Speaker 1: quarterly like everybody else. Um uh and so, but it's
Speaker 1: paid basically with the first shipment by the manufacturer. UM
Speaker 1: is when the taxes is owed, and so the manufacturer's
Speaker 1: gotta you know, submit the tax receipts to Treasury to
Speaker 1: the Tax and Trade or t t B. They pay
Speaker 1: based off of sales or what they made sales. So UM.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a little complicated, but some sales are
Speaker 1: examples some uh from the tax and um and it
Speaker 1: gets very you know, like any text tax lug. It's complicated,
Speaker 1: but basically it's a commercial sale of firems and ammuation products.
Speaker 1: At the manufactural level is when the taxes. Sales to
Speaker 1: the uniform branches are not Those sales are not taxable. UM.
Speaker 1: Sales to state law enforcement is not tax but but oddly,
Speaker 1: sales to federal law enforcement is taxable, which I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know how that came to be, but that's
Speaker 1: the way it is. So but it's basically, you know,
Speaker 1: and as you say, you know, the taxes baked into
Speaker 1: the cost of the goods, just like all other costs insurance, electricity, labor.
Speaker 1: You know, it's it's reflected in the price of the goods.
Speaker 1: But at the end of the day that you know
Speaker 1: that the consumer of the hunter, of the shooters paying
Speaker 1: the tax. Uh. In an indirect fashion, we like to,
Speaker 1: you know, tell hunters that you're you're funding conservation, right
Speaker 1: so they understand their Connecticut. But to your point, UH,
Speaker 1: target shooters, people who never go afield um are are
Speaker 1: actually paying the lions share of the acts because you guys,
Speaker 1: you guys did that study. People in the initially think
Speaker 1: it's higher. Intuitally you can see it, but I would
Speaker 1: never have guessed that that would be the break. So
Speaker 1: think about it this way, Steve. This past hunting season,
Speaker 1: I went out and I killed two deer this year.
Speaker 1: So I killed one with my bow and I killed
Speaker 1: one with my rifle. I probably used maybe three, let's
Speaker 1: say five rounds to check the zero on my rifle,
Speaker 1: and I put one round through the deer I killed.
Speaker 1: So that's what six rounds max that I used through
Speaker 1: my rifle hunt in your hunt with Granddaddy's rifew hunting
Speaker 1: with my with my old Resent seven thirty odd six. UM.
Speaker 1: But when I go to the range on the weekend
Speaker 1: and fire my pistols or fire my R fifteen, I'm
Speaker 1: starting at a minimum of a hundred rounds. I'm buying
Speaker 1: a hunt rounds right across the counter, and I'm going
Speaker 1: into the range, And that's what I'm gonna that's the
Speaker 1: minimum start of what I'm gonna play with that day.
Speaker 1: So you think you figure I used six rounds to
Speaker 1: hunt deer this year, I'll use that. Say you go
Speaker 1: to the range once a month, I'm going to use
Speaker 1: a minimum of twelve rounds through each of my firearms.
Speaker 1: So that's the money that's going towards conservation. Yeah. We
Speaker 1: talked about it recently because hunters I was saying, like
Speaker 1: there's awareness about Pittman robertson right, and I think and
Speaker 1: it was funny because the hunters like to vocalize about it.
Speaker 1: We like to we like to virtue signal around rovers
Speaker 1: when they're looking at that numbers of that money is, yes,
Speaker 1: seventy eight percent of that money is tied to UM. Yeah,
Speaker 1: recreational shooting, and the license sells, you know, helps fund conservation.
Speaker 1: That hunters are the original green movement. Hunters are the
Speaker 1: original conservationist, which is a fact that has become lost
Speaker 1: on a lot of people now because I think that
Speaker 1: because some of the systems, the systems have been in
Speaker 1: place for the systems have been in place for so
Speaker 1: long that people lose the people lose sight of it. Um.
Speaker 1: I said, when I had no awareness when I was
Speaker 1: a kid, I had no wareness of how like you,
Speaker 1: how your state Fishing Game Agency, which does all the
Speaker 1: work they do from disease research to law enforcement, had
Speaker 1: no idea of where that money came from. Right. You
Speaker 1: kind of live like a pretty nice life in this country,
Speaker 1: just hunting, fishing away, Yeah, with no idea like the machinations,
Speaker 1: right that it goes on behind the scenes. Um, it's uh,
Speaker 1: we're very proud of it. I mean, you know, it's
Speaker 1: because think about it, that's ten eleven percent at the
Speaker 1: bottom line at the industry willingly pays that tax, and
Speaker 1: and look the success we've had since the tax you know,
Speaker 1: was put to that purpose. I mean, the wildlife are
Speaker 1: doing pretty darn darn well in this country. I mean
Speaker 1: more whitetail, dere more turkey. You know, it's it's great success,
Speaker 1: the bald eagles off the endangered species list, all of
Speaker 1: us being you know, funded by UM the x X tax.
Speaker 1: I think you pointed out well when you wrote that
Speaker 1: piece for Outside magazine a couple of months ago where
Speaker 1: you were talking about, hey, bird watchers, you have birds
Speaker 1: to look at because of hunters. So I mean, this
Speaker 1: is and to what was the point of where we're
Speaker 1: talking about. We've got a lot of people that are
Speaker 1: going to gun ranges tell that will never step foot
Speaker 1: in the woods, and they're the ones that are helping
Speaker 1: fundness that. That's that that that's a nice segue. We
Speaker 1: were really cherish a good segue around here into uh,
Speaker 1: I want you guys explain the target practice and marksmanship
Speaker 1: training support act UM because I was gonna go there
Speaker 1: and you want to have questions, but I have questions
Speaker 1: about it. I call it pivot. You called oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that that's a pivot. So yeah, that's good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you imagine a pivot having like a point of pivot.
Speaker 1: So this is I think this is hard for some
Speaker 1: people to visualize that. So so this Pittman Robertson fund
Speaker 1: takes kind of like where the where when it comes
Speaker 1: to exercise the fund. It's like matching grants where states
Speaker 1: are doing projects and they get funding that they apply
Speaker 1: for funding from the fund to to do certain projects,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the projects are centered around wildlife restoration.
Speaker 1: There's a movement though, catching like interrupt me when I'm wrong, okay,
Speaker 1: And then there's a push though that states should have
Speaker 1: more flexibility to use Pittman Robertson money to create shooting ranges. Right,
Speaker 1: So the law now allows the states to use the
Speaker 1: money for wildlife conservation restoration. That's where the bulk of
Speaker 1: the money goes and should go. They can also use
Speaker 1: some of the Pittman Robertson for hunter education, obviously very important.
Speaker 1: They do that now and they can already now also
Speaker 1: use the some of the funds under certain conditions in
Speaker 1: the law to build or enhance public shooting ranges. So
Speaker 1: a number of years ago we have had Cobbly always
Speaker 1: have conversations with the state fishing game agencies. Right, they
Speaker 1: have an organization called uh UH Association Fish and Wildlife Agencies,
Speaker 1: very creative things. So they have meetings and we go
Speaker 1: to the meetings and because it was obviously uh things
Speaker 1: we need to dialogue. And one of the discussions was
Speaker 1: and I remember being at the meeting because I said, look,
Speaker 1: you know, we from the industry point of view, think
Speaker 1: you guys are not spending enough money building public shooting
Speaker 1: ranges and we need that. That's where the growth is
Speaker 1: taking place is in uh, the shooting sports. Uh. And
Speaker 1: we all know about the struggles for hunting, but you
Speaker 1: know it's just to your the point we were just
Speaker 1: talking about. The shooters that never go afield are the
Speaker 1: ones that are PAYINGLED you know, the excise tax, right,
Speaker 1: that's where the bulk of the money is coming from
Speaker 1: the firearms ammunition that are being used for target shooting.
Speaker 1: So we think, you guys, should you know, spend more
Speaker 1: money on us. This is what we want to see
Speaker 1: and we're paying the tacks And they say, well, the
Speaker 1: formulas very restrictive and the loss and that's one of
Speaker 1: the reasons why they just don't really do it. And
Speaker 1: so we said, what what do you need? What would
Speaker 1: you want? And that became the what we call the
Speaker 1: Range Bill because the name is too long to the
Speaker 1: target practice, marksmanship training and Support Act that it's sponsored
Speaker 1: by Senator Capital in the Senate called the Range Bill.
Speaker 1: It's easier and so all the bill will do is
Speaker 1: change that formula in the Pittman Robertson Act to allow
Speaker 1: UM more flexibility in the States to use their Pittman
Speaker 1: Robertson allocation. So there's two parts to it. There's the
Speaker 1: match part and then there's the time frame. So it
Speaker 1: extends the time period and it reduces help the match
Speaker 1: so UM so that the states have to put up
Speaker 1: less money from their allocation and they have more time
Speaker 1: to get the project done. It has no impact on
Speaker 1: the deficit. It doesn't change the XCES tax up or down.
Speaker 1: It just gives them a little bit more flexibility. So
Speaker 1: it's broadly supported. It is passed the House and the
Speaker 1: Senate in different packages as stand alone's. We have yet
Speaker 1: to get it across the finish line. But hopus because
Speaker 1: why because I want to touch more. But it just
Speaker 1: gets into it gets into a little bit of politics.
Speaker 1: It's what it gets packaged. So a lot of times
Speaker 1: because it's not controversial at all as broad bipartisan support. Well,
Speaker 1: I want to point out a controversy. It could pass
Speaker 1: when unanimous can sent us a standalone right like, which
Speaker 1: is what we tried to do. It gets bundled the
Speaker 1: package with other provisions that are that where there is
Speaker 1: disagreement or it's not as bipartisan, and so they try
Speaker 1: to use the bill as a sweetener um to try
Speaker 1: to bring people along on other on other titles in
Speaker 1: the bill. And then that big sportsman's package keeps getting
Speaker 1: bogged down and not getting across the finish line. Um.
Speaker 1: Some of it is pure politics because the you know,
Speaker 1: the sponsor is it is up for reelection and the
Speaker 1: other side doesn't want to give him a win before
Speaker 1: you know, for the election. That's just you know the
Speaker 1: nature of politics, right, I mean, the politics drives policy,
Speaker 1: as they say here in Washington. So, um, so we've
Speaker 1: tried to you know, we've we've had it in the
Speaker 1: n d A A, which is the Defense author you
Speaker 1: know Defense Appropriation Bill with funds d O D. We
Speaker 1: had it in there on one side. It fell out
Speaker 1: in conference because for a number of reasons, basically because
Speaker 1: McCain wasn't around, uh just right before he died, and
Speaker 1: so they kept the bill clean. Nothing extraneous was allowed
Speaker 1: to be kept in so it fell out there. We
Speaker 1: thought we had it done then, so it's we've been
Speaker 1: working on it. I don't know, like six maybe eight years. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it takes that long. I was watching an interview
Speaker 1: with you and you were talking um. You were talking
Speaker 1: about just the slow, arguous process of legislation. Yeah, it doesn't.
Speaker 1: You were managing expectations, yes, like for the Airing Protection Act. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what that's what I want to do next pivot.
Speaker 1: That would have been a great pivot, but I got
Speaker 1: the back up. I could see a smart I could
Speaker 1: see a smart, well meaning person looking at the range
Speaker 1: bill and being nervous or leery or suspicious of the
Speaker 1: fact that you'd be pulling some of the money away
Speaker 1: from wildlife work. But I think what I would tell
Speaker 1: him in that conversation is that would tell him that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the word investment gets thrown around a lot right in politics,
Speaker 1: like everything's an investment, but you can kind of see
Speaker 1: it as being a I think you can make a
Speaker 1: legitimate case that it is like an investment. By creating
Speaker 1: more opportunities for shooters exactly, you're probably gonna generate You're
Speaker 1: gonna generate a lot, You're probably gonna generate a larger
Speaker 1: fund and maybe and then with the goal being the
Speaker 1: end of the day, actually putting more money towards wildlof
Speaker 1: That's exactly here's the talking points that many many, many
Speaker 1: meetings on the hill, rising tide floats, all boats, shooters
Speaker 1: who are paying for conservation deserve a return on their investment.
Speaker 1: And the more public opportunities for shooting, the more consumption
Speaker 1: of ammunition, the more purchase of farms, the more funding
Speaker 1: for wildlife conservation. Pittman Robertson exercise tax dollars will increase now.
Speaker 1: And the bill does not require the states to do anything,
Speaker 1: It just gives them flexibility they want to do. So
Speaker 1: then if we get this past and then they don't,
Speaker 1: we'll be back saying now, look, you said this is
Speaker 1: what you needed, We got it for you. Now please
Speaker 1: go build some more ranges or just improve the ones
Speaker 1: that exist. It doesn't need to be mysterious because it's
Speaker 1: something it's like easily trackable. And and maybe you'd see
Speaker 1: a diminishment of um I would like to think you'd
Speaker 1: see a diminishment of shot up appliances because we use honestly,
Speaker 1: we use a lot of makeshift You kind of forced
Speaker 1: to We use a lot of makeshift shooting range and
Speaker 1: that's part of the concern to this, I mean, is
Speaker 1: one of the things that we find from new shooters
Speaker 1: new hunters is is the barriers to entry. One. Let's
Speaker 1: be honest, it's an expensive sport to get into. Whether
Speaker 1: you're gonna be shooting recreational, you're gonna hunt buying a rifle,
Speaker 1: buying licenses, uh, you know, whether you're not, you're gonna
Speaker 1: be buying access through you know, hunt leases, those kinds
Speaker 1: of things. But when you have a public access range,
Speaker 1: now that's open to everybody to go use. But again,
Speaker 1: what we're seeing here is a lot of range that
Speaker 1: have dilapidated or their ad hoc ranges. And we actually
Speaker 1: had cases out there in Arizona where people were shooting
Speaker 1: on public ranges that weren't maintained and weren't well kept,
Speaker 1: and you had a fatality of a pregnant Air Force
Speaker 1: spouse who was shot and killed by a stray around
Speaker 1: that went beyond the edge of that range, beyond the
Speaker 1: left and right let of limits and and resulted in
Speaker 1: the fatality. We want safe places for people to go shoot.
Speaker 1: It's one of the things we're working are working for
Speaker 1: UM in the council, the Federal Advisory Committee that I'm
Speaker 1: i chair, the Shooting Committee, And that's exactly the discussion
Speaker 1: we've been having is we need places where people can
Speaker 1: go shoot. They need you know, dedicated space so that
Speaker 1: they can be policed. After the Shot Show last year,
Speaker 1: myself and several other folks menaces have went out with
Speaker 1: secretaries Inky and and local volunteers, uh and you know,
Speaker 1: to clean up some blm land where people had been shooting.
Speaker 1: And it was not pretty right. I mean it's the
Speaker 1: shot up TVs and refrigerators and couches and just like
Speaker 1: it was just it was embarrassing and here was it.
Speaker 1: They're picking this trash up and bags and bag after
Speaker 1: bag after bag, and it's like, you know this this
Speaker 1: is not a good you know, if you're not a hunter,
Speaker 1: you're not a shooter. You come and saw this, it
Speaker 1: would not be you know, you would not have a
Speaker 1: good opinion of the sport or people that participated in
Speaker 1: the sport. You want to point out like I don't um,
Speaker 1: you know you're a shooter. But it does mean I
Speaker 1: condone littering exactly. But they get they get conflated. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, I think it could become a major barrier,
Speaker 1: right Like for us, we all of us at the
Speaker 1: table can sort of like deal with that and you
Speaker 1: can like make it a safe place when you show
Speaker 1: up and if you see unsafe activity, you can walk away.
Speaker 1: But to someone that's just trying to get into it
Speaker 1: and you just you show up at a place like that,
Speaker 1: it's like you're not gonna be able to make the
Speaker 1: best of that. You're just gonna turn around and walk away.
Speaker 1: It's it becomes it leads to be a lm closing
Speaker 1: off lands, shotting lands now right to shooting. And even
Speaker 1: for us, I feel like there's never like enough shooting ranges.
Speaker 1: And all the places I've lived across the West, um,
Speaker 1: I've never lived in a town where there was so
Speaker 1: many shooting ranges were on a Saturday, You're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go here and it won't be busy,
Speaker 1: right Like. So when I moved to Virginia, I actually
Speaker 1: one of the criteria for the house that I chose
Speaker 1: to live in was the the access to a private
Speaker 1: shooting range is just down the road from my house.
Speaker 1: So I mean, that's how important it is for some
Speaker 1: of us. We want to know that we can get
Speaker 1: somewhere we can shoot. And it's it's a question I
Speaker 1: get from people all the time, you know, where can
Speaker 1: I go shoot? I'm fortunate that I've got a public
Speaker 1: shooting range not too far from the house where i
Speaker 1: can go shoot swing a shotgun. And I've also got
Speaker 1: a private range where i can go shoot. Yeah, what's
Speaker 1: it called where let's go let's go shooting dot org. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I grew up a mile we could ride our bikes
Speaker 1: down to our shoot range. It was it wasn't public.
Speaker 1: It was a private gun club. Twin a gun club,
Speaker 1: and you know, you'd have to work hard to find
Speaker 1: someone there. Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was nice to have. Uh.
Speaker 1: Back to the pivot suppressors. This is something that becomes
Speaker 1: like increasingly interested and I'm actually just entered into the
Speaker 1: prob I just began the process with the help of
Speaker 1: a friend of mine, um, a friend of mine at Vortex.
Speaker 1: I began the process of doing the the rigmarole to
Speaker 1: acquire one. Yeah, when I started it before I started before,
Speaker 1: but at the time there was a fourteen months delay.
Speaker 1: It's probably about nine ten months now. He was saying
Speaker 1: maybe eight maybe it's well then the shot then nothing
Speaker 1: got processed doing I think it's we asked him to
Speaker 1: tell us what the delay is, UM, and it was
Speaker 1: eight months. It's started getting it down. It's probably eight
Speaker 1: nine months. A friend of mine actually, UM, that's UM
Speaker 1: got one a year. Yeah, I want to get into that,
Speaker 1: like what that process looks like and what could remedy it.
Speaker 1: But just touched on it, kind of like my personal
Speaker 1: awareness of the issue. UM. I hunted with one years
Speaker 1: ago how many years ago? Nine years ago in Scotland, Okay,
Speaker 1: and I'm in I'm sitting there with a guy what
Speaker 1: do they call the what do they call the guy hunt? Whatever?
Speaker 1: He's like a man, he's like a game man. Yeah there,
Speaker 1: game man's just called Gillies. Shoots tons of shoots tons
Speaker 1: of deer off a big they got, like this huge
Speaker 1: private property like in the state, and this guy shoots
Speaker 1: tons of them for the market. I mean he like,
Speaker 1: you know, they sell red deer, right, they sell wild
Speaker 1: red deer. And he shoots and guts and brings to
Speaker 1: market red deer processes him now processes and but strips
Speaker 1: the hide and the only and it well, it was
Speaker 1: funny he only got from the diaphragm down, which there's
Speaker 1: they had a word for it too. Anyways, this guy
Speaker 1: hounts it a suppressor. He had a tik T three
Speaker 1: because it's to seventy that my lee with a suppressed round.
Speaker 1: I remember saying that this is years ago, and I
Speaker 1: wasn't like it's aware of them and then and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I can't believe you guys can hunt with these things,
Speaker 1: because I can't believe you don't. It's their rule. Yes,
Speaker 1: he's not allowed to not use it. That's exactly right.
Speaker 1: Only in America is there this public perception that this
Speaker 1: is some evil device only used has only one purpose,
Speaker 1: that's for gangsters and assassins, right like, and as you say,
Speaker 1: and the rest of the world that doesn't have that connotation.
Speaker 1: It's required for hunting in many parts, even the countries
Speaker 1: that have a very restrict Finland, like you, even if
Speaker 1: you're out, you know, when going around for miles, you
Speaker 1: still required by law there to use it. You can
Speaker 1: buy them like hardware stores in London. Right in England
Speaker 1: they're not. You can buy them and jailing in like
Speaker 1: they come from China. They're made up plastic and they're
Speaker 1: disposable and they cost like bucks. I've been told, um,
Speaker 1: only in America do you have this connotations. But you
Speaker 1: they are legal to possess in forty two states. You
Speaker 1: gotta jump through all the hoops, but they're legal and
Speaker 1: forty two stags and you can hunt with them now
Speaker 1: in forty states. So you know, there's the let there's
Speaker 1: the legislation that's been pending for a while called the
Speaker 1: Hearing Protection Act. I want to talk more. I want
Speaker 1: to talk theory for a couple more minutes, and I
Speaker 1: want to talk about all this other stuff because this
Speaker 1: is stuff, this stuff I don't actually don't understand. We
Speaker 1: want to talk about the theory of it from mr.
Speaker 1: Because the best argument I've heard against suppressors was from
Speaker 1: a remember just we're hunting swamp rabbits and can talk
Speaker 1: to do We're talking to a game hunting with a
Speaker 1: game warden, and I think I've told I've told this
Speaker 1: story like too many times. Are about to tell one
Speaker 1: more time that I'm never gonna tell it again. We're
Speaker 1: talking to him and he was saying how during general
Speaker 1: firearms season, hunting for him is out of the question.
Speaker 1: He's just too busy doing his work as a game ward,
Speaker 1: but he says he does like to uh squeeze in
Speaker 1: some archery hunting. He says, but my problem is I
Speaker 1: get up in my tree stand. It's bow season and
Speaker 1: it gets around prime time and often the distance pouch right.
Speaker 1: He's like something about that shot doesn't sound right, and
Speaker 1: he says that I'm down out of my tree stand
Speaker 1: heading over in some direction, and he was saying that.
Speaker 1: He also said that Facebook is a very important has
Speaker 1: become has emerged as a very good law enforcement tool.
Speaker 1: He said, like, I don't need to go out on
Speaker 1: the bois bar. I got Facebook. But he said, like
Speaker 1: that sound is important. Is an important tool for him,
Speaker 1: And he was leery of suppressor because the gunshot right.
Speaker 1: But then I think about, like and I took that
Speaker 1: in and and I thought about But then more I
Speaker 1: think about it is like the way we the way
Speaker 1: we're trained to view wildlife and in the wildlife models
Speaker 1: that we have is where we're trained to view it
Speaker 1: or not trained to. It's necessary to view wildlife at
Speaker 1: population level. So I just have the more thing. I
Speaker 1: just have a very hard time picturing that you would
Speaker 1: see even localized population impact from if some small number
Speaker 1: of poachers use that technology along with all the other
Speaker 1: technologies available to them, including cross bowls, which are much quieter. Um,
Speaker 1: I just can't see, like, I can't see their becoming
Speaker 1: significant population level declines game because of this this other tool.
Speaker 1: So let's back up. Yeah, so let's just back up
Speaker 1: a second to what your your game warden is telling you.
Speaker 1: Cause I've got a guy I used to work for
Speaker 1: him Marine Corpt. And he retired andies the game ward
Speaker 1: in Florida, and his initial reactions suppressor is the same thing.
Speaker 1: They're gonna be a tool for poachers all the time.
Speaker 1: But something the key that you said. So the game
Speaker 1: ward sitting in his tree stand and he hears this
Speaker 1: gun shot slightly different, doesn't sound like a normal gun shot,
Speaker 1: but he still hears it. So here's the point about it.
Speaker 1: I misspoke. Not No, he wasn't pointing that out where
Speaker 1: he was pointing. He wasn't saying it was a suppressed
Speaker 1: gun shot, just the timing of the gun shot, meaning
Speaker 1: a single gun shot at dusk. Sure, Okay, yeah, I
Speaker 1: got it. So you still hear this gun shot, But again,
Speaker 1: the whole deal was suppressors, is it doesn't completely silence
Speaker 1: the gun. It brings it down from the same decibel
Speaker 1: level of about a jet going off to about below
Speaker 1: a jackhammer, where it's not going to cause instant and
Speaker 1: permanent here laws, you can still hear that exactly. That's
Speaker 1: why we in the law they're called silencers because that's
Speaker 1: the name Maxim gave to it when he invented it,
Speaker 1: right like, and he's the guy that he it was
Speaker 1: he invented the muffler on cars. It is. Its function
Speaker 1: is the same as a muffler. You can still hear
Speaker 1: a car with a muffler. Without the muffler. It's a
Speaker 1: lot louder, but that's all it is. It muffles straight pipes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so that's why we always refer to it as suppressors,
Speaker 1: not not silencers. It's, you know, even though the law
Speaker 1: of suncers, you know, to try to win the rhetorical
Speaker 1: battle is I understand it. UM. The best research UM
Speaker 1: on the on the issues was done by UM Steve Hallbrook,
Speaker 1: a lawyer. Second Amendment Abbas argued many Supreme Court cases
Speaker 1: and he's written a number of books. The UM. The
Speaker 1: reason that suppressors were put in the National Firms Act
Speaker 1: was at the request of fishing game agencies because they
Speaker 1: were concerned that people would use suppressors to poach game
Speaker 1: during the depression. That's where it came from. Yes, and
Speaker 1: it never happened. And and now they're legal in hunt
Speaker 1: within forty states and I've not seen any evidence or
Speaker 1: suggestion that you know, people are poaching and it's having
Speaker 1: an impact on population localized. Okay, but you can poach
Speaker 1: with a crossbow. No one talking about getting rid of crossbows.
Speaker 1: It's like an effect. There's plenty of if you follow
Speaker 1: the news, there's plenty of poaching that goes down with
Speaker 1: archery equipment. But no one's suggesting, hey, we should be
Speaker 1: allowed to have bows because they're so quiet and you
Speaker 1: can poach with them. But even take it outside the
Speaker 1: context of hunting, right, I mean, like if you go
Speaker 1: to a shooting range. One of the biggest complaints or
Speaker 1: issues for shooting ranges is noise complaints from neighbors. Right.
Speaker 1: Typically it's you know, the rangers in rural area and
Speaker 1: then the suburbs move in. People move next to a
Speaker 1: shooting range, and then they're shocked to learn that they're
Speaker 1: shooting at the shooting range. On Saturday morning. So if
Speaker 1: you're range that I moved next to, so it will
Speaker 1: allow people at shooting rate ranges to be better neighbors
Speaker 1: and to sort of address that concern and issue. But
Speaker 1: and if let's assume there was some evidence that developed
Speaker 1: that we got a problem in this state or this
Speaker 1: part of the state where you know we're seeing in
Speaker 1: reduction in an adverse population. In fact, we think there's
Speaker 1: a lot of coaching and people using suppressors, Well, then
Speaker 1: you can state fishing gamage. She has the power to
Speaker 1: you know, manage that and say okay, you can't use
Speaker 1: suppressors now. But I mean, if people are approaching the
Speaker 1: breaking the law, all right, I mean it's like so,
Speaker 1: but I don't think there's any evidence of that and
Speaker 1: they never used in crime. I mean, like you can't
Speaker 1: find evidence of a t come out and say it's
Speaker 1: infantesimally low. I mean, they can't zero Another thing that
Speaker 1: I think But when I look at it, as I
Speaker 1: was kind of kicking this whole thing around, is that
Speaker 1: why why why does shooters have to like why do
Speaker 1: we have to as a matter of law, except how
Speaker 1: loud a firearm is, Like if firearmer is naturally quiet.
Speaker 1: Would there be legislation that made you make it loud?
Speaker 1: So one of the arguments against the Hearing Protection Act
Speaker 1: from the gun control groups is that, you know, the police,
Speaker 1: it would defeat this technology that was developed in Iraq
Speaker 1: and now being used in some city spot shot shot
Speaker 1: spotter and the CEO of the company said no, the
Speaker 1: technology would still a coup report of suppressed firearms and
Speaker 1: all they have to do is tweak the software. So yeah,
Speaker 1: that that became the argument like that somehow bad guys
Speaker 1: are gonna get go through the rigamarole and get suppressors.
Speaker 1: I mean it's just thinking, get them now the legal
Speaker 1: and forty two states, and you don't see crimes being
Speaker 1: committed with them. The thing to nothing that nothing changed
Speaker 1: my perspectives as I kicked it around. Um, I think
Speaker 1: having kids kind of affected to because I have hearing loss.
Speaker 1: I'm left handed and I have hearing loss in my
Speaker 1: left ear. What you don't say, I mean everybody hang
Speaker 1: out with everyone. I hang out with one another. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I have it and now it's largely self inflicted. Okay,
Speaker 1: because I've known for my adult life then and I'm
Speaker 1: bad about it. I need to be better. But I'm
Speaker 1: bad about hearing protection. Um lazy about hearing protection. When
Speaker 1: I was a kid, it wasn't self inflicted. It was
Speaker 1: just that my dad had no where the didn't have
Speaker 1: awareness of it. He probably I can only imagine what
Speaker 1: kind of hearing. A lot of emails they had from
Speaker 1: being you know, uh, combat soldier. But uh, now, man,
Speaker 1: when I when I'm with my kids we're shooting, I'm
Speaker 1: very aware of the ear thing. In fact, I made
Speaker 1: my kid we're all duck hunting, and I made him
Speaker 1: sit there with the headphones on. You know, he can't
Speaker 1: hear it. I'd be yelling at him to go grab
Speaker 1: a doct or somebody. Can't hear anything everybody's saying. But
Speaker 1: I'm just like, I'm aware of it now. And so
Speaker 1: when he's ten where we live, he can hunt with me.
Speaker 1: You can hunt deer with me when he's ten, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have him home with the suppress rifle. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And there's other benefits aside from the from the here,
Speaker 1: from the hearing protection of it all. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: reduced recoil, it's it's it's less of a muzzle flash.
Speaker 1: It's it's when you're trying to introduce someone to the
Speaker 1: shooting sports, into hunting, and you're able to sit there,
Speaker 1: especially if you're gonna be hunting out of a out
Speaker 1: of a shoothouse or out of a blond or you're
Speaker 1: sitting at a tree stand in close proxim need to
Speaker 1: one another. It's it's less of that shock that's coming
Speaker 1: out of the end of the barrel and the muscle blast.
Speaker 1: So it takes it up and it makes that learning
Speaker 1: experience for someone new, like a ten year old kid,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a little bit more enjoyable, a little
Speaker 1: bit less intimidating. It takes some of that that scariness
Speaker 1: out of it. So yeah, I'm definitely saying I'm sensitive
Speaker 1: to I'm saying I don't want to like diminish the
Speaker 1: arguments against and I'm sensitive to it. But I just
Speaker 1: I just feel like it's a situation where the pros
Speaker 1: really outweighed the cons in my mind, and the cons
Speaker 1: haven't aren't the cons aren't demonstrated their hypothetical comment. The
Speaker 1: opposition to it comes from gun control groups, and they
Speaker 1: don't have any to me, you know, good case or
Speaker 1: good arguments at all. And in fact, you know it
Speaker 1: would be good for a t F because they spend
Speaker 1: an enormous amount of time and energy and money processing
Speaker 1: these paper the paperwork where and uh, you know this
Speaker 1: is not a public this is not a you know,
Speaker 1: public safety issue. It's not going to result in crime
Speaker 1: or anything like that. And they spend an incredible amount
Speaker 1: of time processing these form force you have to fill
Speaker 1: out and explain the process like would involved. Yeah, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a two hundred tax that you have to pay
Speaker 1: um and you have bought this form. You have to
Speaker 1: get you know, pictures, fingerprints and the forum and send
Speaker 1: it in with two hundred dollars to a t F
Speaker 1: and notification of the Chief law enforce PRIs who does
Speaker 1: want with it nothing? Uh, And then the two goes
Speaker 1: to the treasury a t F process of paperwork, and
Speaker 1: they do a background check. Guess what the background check is?
Speaker 1: The exact same background check you go through and you
Speaker 1: buy a gun at retail, right, the exact same check.
Speaker 1: What does it take because there's just stacks of paper,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's all paper, right, So, so ways
Speaker 1: to improve it would be electronic forms. Some of the
Speaker 1: discussions about how you might do legislation would be the
Speaker 1: The original act was to take it out of the
Speaker 1: n f A. Suppressors are also in the Gun Control Act. Right,
Speaker 1: So even if you took it out of the National
Speaker 1: Firms Act, so you didn't have to pay the two dollars,
Speaker 1: you didn't have to do the form for the same
Speaker 1: thing that makes it fully automatic. That's the same that's
Speaker 1: the same act that covers automatic. Right, yes, exactly. So, Um,
Speaker 1: if you took it out of the National Firms Act,
Speaker 1: it would still be in the Gun Control Act. So
Speaker 1: if you would, so they would still be serialized, they
Speaker 1: would still be seventy three and a background check performed
Speaker 1: on the purchase, or the same background check they do
Speaker 1: a second time when they go to pick up the suppressor,
Speaker 1: So you're doing the same same check twice. What's the point? Right?
Speaker 1: So that would like then then you know, the manufacturers
Speaker 1: could ship into license the liers and you can go
Speaker 1: in and you can have him an inventory. You can
Speaker 1: go buy one and go through the same right. So
Speaker 1: there are some but there's one bill that's been introduced
Speaker 1: in the Senate that would take it even out of
Speaker 1: the Gun Control Act. Um, you know, and it would
Speaker 1: be wouldn't be regulated or just be like any other
Speaker 1: accessory because it's not a farmer doesn't do anything and
Speaker 1: only you know, as we talked to you, just it's
Speaker 1: an attachment that you would put on a firearm. So
Speaker 1: the argument be, what's why is this being controlled at all?
Speaker 1: So you know whether that's Look, the legislation didn't move
Speaker 1: into Republican controlled House and Senate because there's a lot
Speaker 1: of misinformation out there and a lot of education needs
Speaker 1: to be done. Um, you know so, but in a
Speaker 1: Democrat controlled House where you know they're having hearings today
Speaker 1: on gun control legislation, the prospects of moving that legislation
Speaker 1: in this Congress is you know, it's not feasible in
Speaker 1: my opinion, even like even with the arguments around just
Speaker 1: safety issues. Yeah, I mean, it becomes a political issue.
Speaker 1: They're not going to pass anything like it. It's not
Speaker 1: gonna happen. Yeah, can you talk. But I mean even
Speaker 1: even when the Republicans control the House, was still difficult
Speaker 1: to move the bill and in the Senate as well.
Speaker 1: I mean it was just you know, we didn't get
Speaker 1: enough co sponsors, we didn't get enough movement on it.
Speaker 1: So it takes a lot of time. It takes years
Speaker 1: and years and years happen. I think I will. It's
Speaker 1: gonna take a while longer, So I would say you
Speaker 1: probably he He's go in a minute, or it could
Speaker 1: take another ten years. When when here In Protection Act
Speaker 1: was introduced in the last Congress, and we saw a
Speaker 1: lot of people got very excited and they kind of
Speaker 1: sat out on the sidelines. But I'm gonna wait. So
Speaker 1: I wanted to pay the tour in all attacks and
Speaker 1: wait nine months, so we're back to where we're telling him,
Speaker 1: then don't wait because things in Congress are glacial. So
Speaker 1: if you want a suppression, I would completely agree. If
Speaker 1: you're holding off anyone because you think you're not gonna
Speaker 1: pay the two under all attacks, yeah you can be
Speaker 1: waiting a long time. Unfortunately, I had dinner recently with
Speaker 1: one of the state uh with a state legislator in
Speaker 1: Montana who was um who worked heavily on the on
Speaker 1: the one that that the that allowed for hunting in Montana,
Speaker 1: and then they had had some resistance, They had had
Speaker 1: some resistance there against fishing game. Yeah, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't know if it was I don't know if it
Speaker 1: was a real strenuous resistance but there was some there
Speaker 1: was some resistance. So there's been efforts to events around
Speaker 1: the country UM done by the American Suppress Association and
Speaker 1: SPIST helped out, and RA has helped out as well.
Speaker 1: To educate state legislators. We did an event at the
Speaker 1: UM shooting Rage and Rayburn Building. Did you know that
Speaker 1: there's a there's a range and ranger New Congress. Oh,
Speaker 1: it's for the Capital Hill Police. But we had the
Speaker 1: member host an event for other members so that they
Speaker 1: could come in here for themselves. The difference between expressed
Speaker 1: and unspressed firearm and that there's still a very loud
Speaker 1: report you can hear and it's not silenced in any way,
Speaker 1: shape or form. What you see on TV, you know,
Speaker 1: like you know, like the puff of air and it's
Speaker 1: just not reality. Would you want with one? Definitely? What
Speaker 1: I was gonna add that I didn't know about, but
Speaker 1: we were looking into doing a podcast just about hearing
Speaker 1: loss and hearing protection and whatnot, and talking to a
Speaker 1: bunch of these experts, they were saying, Yeah, the one
Speaker 1: thing that it would be a very loud but important
Speaker 1: right like obviously not as so important to year old,
Speaker 1: but as we age and you start to realize that
Speaker 1: you're losing it and you want to protect your kids,
Speaker 1: on and on. But um, a lot of these guys
Speaker 1: were saying that, Yeah, it's like it only minimized it
Speaker 1: so much that it takes it down to like you're
Speaker 1: saying to it, but you're still if you don't run
Speaker 1: your protection while you shoot a suppressed going, you are
Speaker 1: still getting hearing damage. It's not a like you just
Speaker 1: put it on and you're just off you go. Like
Speaker 1: everyone I talked to you said, you should still wear
Speaker 1: hearing protection. That's probably the best argument the other side
Speaker 1: has is but when you say you know, hearing protection
Speaker 1: and they say we're hearing protection, you know, yeah, what
Speaker 1: the tonality is why you shouldn't be shooting anyway? Uh,
Speaker 1: background checks? Can you explain? I heard a story now,
Speaker 1: I heard a story I was living. I was living
Speaker 1: in Washington when I heard the story. I heard a
Speaker 1: story about how if you lie on your background check,
Speaker 1: that the prosecutors don't prosecute people who lie on background checks,
Speaker 1: and even interviewed I think someone from the King County
Speaker 1: Sheriff's department, so that the county that holds Seattle, and
Speaker 1: he even confirmed I can't remember how many people some
Speaker 1: staggering number dusing the hundreds of thousands of people who
Speaker 1: tried to buy one and led on a background check,
Speaker 1: but then don't get in trouble for having lied on
Speaker 1: the background check. Do you understand this at all? I
Speaker 1: don't even under something if I'm explaining it right. But
Speaker 1: it's a story when you fell out the forum. It's
Speaker 1: called the forum seventy three. Anyone has purchased a gun
Speaker 1: from a license dealer has build it out and then
Speaker 1: they ask you questions, are you you know, are you
Speaker 1: a felon? Just honor the discharged? You know here illegally
Speaker 1: restraining order? Right, so that like seven categories to make
Speaker 1: you a privative person and then you sign it and
Speaker 1: you swear to the accuracy of it. So you lie
Speaker 1: in the forum. Um, it's a crime, federal crime, and
Speaker 1: you get up ten years in jail. But well, so
Speaker 1: what hass So then to do the background check, right,
Speaker 1: and let's say the persons denied right or um you
Speaker 1: even have cases where people don't lie in the forum.
Speaker 1: Uh hre they lie in the forum and they passed
Speaker 1: the background check. But let's say you've fill out the form,
Speaker 1: you lie say you aren't a convicted felon when you are,
Speaker 1: and you get denied, right, So when that happens, the
Speaker 1: FBI notifies the dealer is not told why you're denied.
Speaker 1: You don't know what the counter The dealer does not know.
Speaker 1: They just know it's like you know, green light, you
Speaker 1: know yellow their delay red light. You know, you're denied,
Speaker 1: and they don't know why you're denied. And they all
Speaker 1: and so they can't tell the customer why they're denied.
Speaker 1: They can just give them information that if they wanted
Speaker 1: to file and appeal with the FBI with NIXT, which
Speaker 1: you can do if you think it was you know,
Speaker 1: they're mistaken, and some small number of times that they
Speaker 1: are because primarily in name check and so you know,
Speaker 1: somebody can have a similar name, similar data birth with
Speaker 1: somebody else and and they think, you know, this is
Speaker 1: John Doe a not John Dobe. Your buddy Kevin Murphy
Speaker 1: wanted up on a no fly list because mother Kevin Murphy.
Speaker 1: Exactly how hell Kevin Murphy. They're gonna be running out
Speaker 1: as I don't know, but so uh, but so the
Speaker 1: FBI will tell a t F Okay, there was and
Speaker 1: then a t f UM. You know, uh, it's their
Speaker 1: job to go out and track these people down. It's
Speaker 1: a yes because at the federal crime and if the
Speaker 1: firearm was transferred the persons supportive person so that so
Speaker 1: but then it becomes a resource issue. A lot of
Speaker 1: times what I've heard is, you know the let's say, uh,
Speaker 1: this is the example is given told to me. You
Speaker 1: got an eighty year old grandfather buying a gun to
Speaker 1: give to a gift to their grandchild or something like that.
Speaker 1: And you know that when they tipped that cow over
Speaker 1: in college and in nineteen fifty three, that was a
Speaker 1: felony under state law, right and they were convicted of
Speaker 1: a felony. They didn't even know it was a felony,
Speaker 1: and so they get denied. You know, are you going
Speaker 1: to prosecute that person? Is that worth using the prosecutor resources?
Speaker 1: So a lot of times h said, look, just give
Speaker 1: us the gun back. You can't buy guns your private
Speaker 1: person um and that sort of situation. Or you're the
Speaker 1: United States Attorney's Office, you have limited resources. You want
Speaker 1: to have the most bang for your buck if you
Speaker 1: will impact on reducing violent crime. They look at that,
Speaker 1: and I'm a former prosecutor, so I can understand this.
Speaker 1: Look I got I'm working, you know, on convicting these
Speaker 1: gang bangers who are selling drugs and involved in shootings
Speaker 1: and such. Or am I gonna go after Grandpa um
Speaker 1: because he didn't realize, you know, forty years ago that
Speaker 1: was a felony. How are you going to use your resources?
Speaker 1: Which is more important to impact in public safety? I
Speaker 1: mean that's a very extreme example, but but there are people.
Speaker 1: You know, if it's a convicted felon that's a bad
Speaker 1: guy and they bought a gun, those are the people
Speaker 1: they would get prosecuted. Um. So it just kind of
Speaker 1: depends on why they were denied. And you know what,
Speaker 1: what's the best use of limited resources? I mean, the
Speaker 1: government is no different than anybody else. You've got limited resources.
Speaker 1: You have to make decisions to maximize the resources to
Speaker 1: have the most impact. Can you explain where background checks
Speaker 1: that you that you get when you go, like you
Speaker 1: go into a you know, sports and warehouse by a
Speaker 1: rifle off the counter, you do a background check. Can
Speaker 1: you explain what people say when they when people talk
Speaker 1: about the need for universal background checks and where within
Speaker 1: universal background checks it like, what's your perspective on it
Speaker 1: and where in that you have where in that you
Speaker 1: have a problem. So if you ever buy firearm from
Speaker 1: a licensed dealer, that's there's a background check that's required
Speaker 1: by law m Brady Act. And you know, we the
Speaker 1: industry supports that. Actually, the idea of the background check
Speaker 1: at the retail point of purchase from a licensee, it
Speaker 1: was an industry idea long before the Brady your your
Speaker 1: organization supports. Yes, it was an industry idea, like because
Speaker 1: the deal we don't want dealers inadvertently selling guns to
Speaker 1: primitive persons, right, we can all agree it's we don't
Speaker 1: want primitive people getting firearms. What we have seen, however,
Speaker 1: is that the background check system that exists now has
Speaker 1: got some pretty significant problems. And the background checks are
Speaker 1: not always accurate, and they're not always the data. I mean,
Speaker 1: the data in the background check system is only as
Speaker 1: good as the data that's put in and if data
Speaker 1: is not put in right. So look at Sutherland Springs,
Speaker 1: there was a guy who was a primitive person, like
Speaker 1: four three or four different ways. Uh, yes, felony conviction.
Speaker 1: This aren't only discharged to domestic violence. And who do
Speaker 1: you say four different ways like he had like he
Speaker 1: was dependent, arrived independently four times, and he was involunt
Speaker 1: involuntarily committed to mental health facility and the Air Force
Speaker 1: and all of d o D, not just the Air Force.
Speaker 1: He happened to be up in the Air Force at
Speaker 1: the time. We're not putting the records into the FBI
Speaker 1: background check system of out of a like out of
Speaker 1: a intellectual opposition of just and and it's frustrating because
Speaker 1: I mean, there were apparently i G reports talking about
Speaker 1: this in the past. Nicks was aware that the d
Speaker 1: o D wasn't putting in records, so that guy was
Speaker 1: able to buy fires four times, going to a store
Speaker 1: or license dealer, buying again, passing a background check four
Speaker 1: times because those records were not in the system. East
Speaker 1: time that retailer at the counters want to make sure
Speaker 1: that he's doing the right thing, and he's running the
Speaker 1: background check on this guy who should never want a firearm,
Speaker 1: and he's coming back clean. He has no idea the
Speaker 1: deal was relying upon that background check, right, so um so,
Speaker 1: and then after the tragedy in Newtown, you know, we
Speaker 1: launched an initiative and there have been some federal legislation
Speaker 1: in the past, but it really just didn't wasn't getting
Speaker 1: the job done. We started NSSF, that is, started the
Speaker 1: Fixed Knicks campaign and on the industry's nickel, we went
Speaker 1: around and got the law change. Now in sixteen states
Speaker 1: were still working on more UH. Montana is one of them,
Speaker 1: me right, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Montana, Wyoming are the three
Speaker 1: states that we're still targeting and then we want to
Speaker 1: make improvements. But we've we changed a law in sixteen
Speaker 1: states UH to require the states to put disqualifying records
Speaker 1: into the FBI database. Primarily what was really missing was
Speaker 1: mental health records because states were not reporting mental health
Speaker 1: records because of privacy laws or states we had to
Speaker 1: change state law because they weren't allowed to under state law,
Speaker 1: and the federal government cannot compel under federal law of
Speaker 1: the states to give the information that they can't, right,
Speaker 1: so it has to be done, you know, voluntarily by
Speaker 1: the states. So we got the law change in sixteen states.
Speaker 1: We increased the disqualifying mental health records in the database,
Speaker 1: the f BAD database by two They went from about
Speaker 1: one point seven million to five million. And again there
Speaker 1: are still states that UM are not submitting, and we're
Speaker 1: going back and looking at the states, like did they
Speaker 1: just put do a big up once and then have
Speaker 1: they continue to report as they should. So we're very
Speaker 1: proud of that, Like we did that, the industry did that.
Speaker 1: Now our view is you have to fix the background
Speaker 1: sex system. Hence NICKS is the national instant criminal background
Speaker 1: check system NICKS, and I see us fixed next to us.
Speaker 1: It makes no sense to start expanding, you know, private
Speaker 1: party background checks when you you have a system that
Speaker 1: needs to be fixed in the first instance, right Like
Speaker 1: that we think is where the focus should be. Let's
Speaker 1: get their records into the database, uh and fix it
Speaker 1: before you have a conversation about expanding it, because you're
Speaker 1: just gonna have more bad background checks and that doesn't
Speaker 1: benefit anybody. Um. So, and there there are other issues
Speaker 1: with the legislation. We have concerns about we UM, but
Speaker 1: we think the focus be on fixing NIX and we
Speaker 1: the industry have been doing that. And then after sezzle
Speaker 1: In Springs sent in a corn and introduced the Fixed
Speaker 1: Knicks act UM named after our program that wasn't by accident.
Speaker 1: We advocated for that bill to pass and it did
Speaker 1: and signed by President Trump, which requires all federal agencies
Speaker 1: to submit records. UM. And we've been talking to Knicks
Speaker 1: and that's happening. UM. But even there are some some um,
Speaker 1: some parts of the federal government were dragging their feed
Speaker 1: and getting the records submitted. Maybe dragging if it's not
Speaker 1: the right word. They weren't as timely as we'd like.
Speaker 1: I think some of it is just again a resource issue.
Speaker 1: And then it gives grant money. It makes grant money
Speaker 1: available to the states, um to help them get their
Speaker 1: records into the system. Uh. There's UM a report I
Speaker 1: think we'll be coming out fairly soon about a year
Speaker 1: anniversary of the bill, to see what progress was made.
Speaker 1: But again, we we talked to Knicks on a regular
Speaker 1: basis and they say, yeah, the records are starting are
Speaker 1: coming in. That d O d S put the records
Speaker 1: in other federal agencies that had records that had not
Speaker 1: been reporting or now minting. So we're very proud of
Speaker 1: that legislation. You know, we advocated for it actually ended
Speaker 1: up passing with more Democrat co sponsors, the Republican GHO sponsors,
Speaker 1: and the lead Democrat co sponsor was Senator Murphy from Connecticut.
Speaker 1: Hardly a fan of the firearms industry, even though the
Speaker 1: industry was founded in Connecticut. Along history you created the
Speaker 1: Connecticut's economy and NSSF is still located there, as are
Speaker 1: some major manufacturers. But so we're very proud of that.
Speaker 1: And I think what that shows is, you know, there
Speaker 1: can be common ground on these issues, and we think
Speaker 1: this is a great example of that. As I said,
Speaker 1: there are other issues with the bill we have concerns about.
Speaker 1: But what would would universal background checks has normally understood
Speaker 1: with that prevent a person from inheriting you know, like
Speaker 1: I never bought I didn't buy a new firearm till
Speaker 1: as in my thirties, right like you would just like
Speaker 1: I just I for long time hume with my grand
Speaker 1: like had ownership of my grandfather's shotgun. Would would universal
Speaker 1: background checks, as a discuss, prevent the like you from
Speaker 1: getting a gun from your parents, no without doing a
Speaker 1: background check. So the bills allow for and it's changed
Speaker 1: over time. Is iterations have been introduced, like to allow
Speaker 1: a transfer within the family right father to son, grandfather
Speaker 1: to grandchild, um, would not require background check. UM. But
Speaker 1: there's so a couple of the issues with the ideas first, well,
Speaker 1: not necessarily in order, but one big issue is that
Speaker 1: universal background checks does it's not enforceable unless you have
Speaker 1: national registration, and the Department of Justice has acknowledged that
Speaker 1: in a written document. Um that it only works uh
Speaker 1: if there's national registration and that too many Second Amendment
Speaker 1: supporters isn't is just unacceptable and federal law doesn't allow registration. Um,
Speaker 1: so how do you you know, like so if you
Speaker 1: can enforce it, and what's you know you make there
Speaker 1: are what's the point? Right? Second is uh, you know,
Speaker 1: studies by the Department of Justice demonstrate that, you know,
Speaker 1: bad guys are not getting guns, you know, from licenses.
Speaker 1: They're stealing them, that's like the number one source, or
Speaker 1: they're just you know, trading them for drugs and things
Speaker 1: like that. Colorado passed universal background checks. There was this
Speaker 1: um what we call the myth con control groups were claiming,
Speaker 1: based on a very flawed, uh discredited study, that of
Speaker 1: all firems transfers are private party and with no background
Speaker 1: check and that's how bad guys are getting guns. Even
Speaker 1: the authors of that study said this is ignore it.
Speaker 1: It's no good. It's a bad study. Colorado passed universal
Speaker 1: background checks and saw not at increase about So this
Speaker 1: this idea of that you know, there are just guns
Speaker 1: going all over the place without background checks. Colorado demonstrates
Speaker 1: that that's not really the case. It used to be
Speaker 1: the gun show loop, the so called gun show loophole.
Speaker 1: The reality about gun shows is that, you know, the
Speaker 1: vast overwhelming majority of people that are selling firms at
Speaker 1: a gun show are licensed dealers. Background checks. Seventy three
Speaker 1: in the background check take place t J surveys of
Speaker 1: prison inmates incarcerated for firms related defenses. Where did you
Speaker 1: get the gun gun shows? Less than one percent? So
Speaker 1: that's just not really And then it became the internet loophole,
Speaker 1: idea that you can buy guns on the internet. Well,
Speaker 1: you can advertise guns on the internet, assuming Facebook or
Speaker 1: others will let you, which they don't. But you know,
Speaker 1: if your license dealer, it's still a face to face transaction.
Speaker 1: With seventy three in the background check, all it is is,
Speaker 1: you know, you may get pay with a credit card
Speaker 1: and then they're gonna get shipped to your local dealer,
Speaker 1: go through a gunbroker dot com. Gunbroker requires anybody using
Speaker 1: that service to that the guns transferred to inn FFL.
Speaker 1: That's that's their own policy and and a lot of
Speaker 1: those sites exist do that. So that's one problem. Another
Speaker 1: problem from the industry's point of view is you're you're
Speaker 1: asking these retailers to perform essentially a government service for
Speaker 1: the government, right and in some states that require background
Speaker 1: checks California, the dealer has no choice. They must do
Speaker 1: it right, and it caps the fee. And guess what,
Speaker 1: the fee is so low that they lose money on
Speaker 1: the transaction. They have got to spend time, energy, labor rights,
Speaker 1: a process of background check for a private party sale.
Speaker 1: Uh and and they end up losing money. But they
Speaker 1: have no choice in California. So that's that's unfair. Um.
Speaker 1: We've seen other states cap the fee. Um. And that's
Speaker 1: you know, if you're gonna let them, if they're gonna
Speaker 1: do this, that they should just be able to charge
Speaker 1: with the market will bear. I mean, it's America, you know,
Speaker 1: the government should be regulating that price. In our point
Speaker 1: of view, Another problem we see is that there's no
Speaker 1: liability protections for the retailer. So you know, Yanni comes
Speaker 1: in with the gun he wants to sell to you. Um,
Speaker 1: the dealer, I take it in I've got to log
Speaker 1: it into my acquisition record, right, I do the background
Speaker 1: check to you, you leave, and then there's an accident
Speaker 1: and then you sue me. So now I got to
Speaker 1: defend a lawsuit for a gun that I didn't sell
Speaker 1: from my inventory. And guess what my insurance company is
Speaker 1: gonna say, you didn't sell that gun from your inventory.
Speaker 1: There's no coverage. Or I make a mistake in the record,
Speaker 1: a t F comes in and finds a violation of
Speaker 1: my paperwork, I can now potentially lose my license because
Speaker 1: of course, have said a single violation of the record
Speaker 1: keeping requirements, a single willf of violation, you can lose
Speaker 1: your license. So here, I'm gonna lose my license for
Speaker 1: a record keeping error on a gun I didn't even
Speaker 1: tell my inventory. So here looks money on it, and
Speaker 1: you lost. So if it comes to another issue, I
Speaker 1: thank you for playing. So so again, let's look at
Speaker 1: the same as. So Larry is gonna be that FFL.
Speaker 1: He's gonna form that transfer and Johannest comes in with
Speaker 1: a gun. He wants to transfer it over. What kind
Speaker 1: of gun you're handing over? Honest, he ruined one of mine.
Speaker 1: Let's say he's trying to sell that. He's trying to
Speaker 1: sell the ruined gun for for twenty bucks in the
Speaker 1: case of a case of beer. So he turns that
Speaker 1: in the background check is run and uh, and it
Speaker 1: turns out that Larry's running the background checks onto both
Speaker 1: of you and you and you both pop as prohibited.
Speaker 1: Now what do I do? Now? What does he do?
Speaker 1: The dilemma of the double denial. So he's got he's
Speaker 1: got a he's got a basically a hot gun that
Speaker 1: he doesn't want to have, and he knows he can't
Speaker 1: hand it back to either one of you, can't transfer
Speaker 1: to you who intends to buy it because you're prohibited,
Speaker 1: and can't hand it back to you because it turns
Speaker 1: out you're prohibited. What does he do now? Citizens rest?
Speaker 1: So now he's got to go to court with with
Speaker 1: with a guy you know that a shape do you?
Speaker 1: And usually and he's just handed you one gun that
Speaker 1: he's he's the dealer that has um I have to
Speaker 1: go to court and file a lawsuits called an interplet
Speaker 1: and and give the gun to the court and say, look,
Speaker 1: I don't have ownership interests that are titling this. These
Speaker 1: two guys, you you court figure it out. I'm out
Speaker 1: of here, or you gotta go try to convince the
Speaker 1: local police department to take the rifle or whatever the
Speaker 1: firearm is. And what are they gonna say, Daddy, I
Speaker 1: don't know any to do with this? Not my problem, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because what are they going to do with it? You
Speaker 1: have to find somebody else to transfer the gun to.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of details about it today, Uh, because
Speaker 1: don't know what hadn't thought about it. It sounds great
Speaker 1: in theory, it really does. But once you start digging
Speaker 1: into it and then it starts to well, how do
Speaker 1: you how do you make this work? Yeah? My resistance
Speaker 1: to it, My resistance to it was based largely on
Speaker 1: how I know that. Um, how I know that like
Speaker 1: in my family, in my circle and my world, how
Speaker 1: like law abiding people, uh, you know, how we do
Speaker 1: our business, go about our business right, and so they
Speaker 1: look at I never looked at it from I never
Speaker 1: looked at it from dealer industry perspective. It was just
Speaker 1: looking at like just our common practices and ways in
Speaker 1: which they would be upset and kind of destroyed. But
Speaker 1: without you know, without really knowing the details of from
Speaker 1: the from the sales perspective. And again you do you
Speaker 1: do a private party background check. But if the background
Speaker 1: check database is inaccurate and incomplete, what have you accomplished?
Speaker 1: Why don't we work on getting the records into the
Speaker 1: system that should be there in the first place. Antana
Speaker 1: needs to change their law. I love Montana, but you
Speaker 1: know they got to change the law. And you know
Speaker 1: the and the what we found was I'll give you
Speaker 1: a real world example from our Fixed Next campaign. The
Speaker 1: Washington Navy are shooting right of place. Several people were killed.
Speaker 1: Turns out, as is often the case in these terrible events,
Speaker 1: the shooter was mentally ill, right, paranoid, schizophrenic. He um
Speaker 1: purchased a gun, a pump shotgun from a dealer in
Speaker 1: Virginia where he lived, past the background check. Um, and
Speaker 1: that's the firearm he used, and he killed a lot
Speaker 1: of people. Not long before he purchased the fire arm,
Speaker 1: he had been in Rhode Island on some work assignment
Speaker 1: and was like off his rocker, and the police get
Speaker 1: called and they take him to a hospital. He was
Speaker 1: not involuntarily committed in Rhode Island, but let's assume he
Speaker 1: had been involuntary committed. Now he's a prohibitive person. Well,
Speaker 1: at some point he gets out, it goes back to Virginia.
Speaker 1: Rhode Island at the time did not put the records
Speaker 1: into next so he would have gotten out of Rhode Island,
Speaker 1: back to Virginia, gone to the dealer, bought that shotgun,
Speaker 1: and passed the background check because Rhode Island didn't put
Speaker 1: the records in. We were working on Rhode Island to
Speaker 1: try to get them to change the law when the
Speaker 1: Washington Navy are shooting occurred and they weren't gonna do it.
Speaker 1: They were gonna study it, which is lobby code for
Speaker 1: like kill the bill. Right, they were gonna go study it.
Speaker 1: They weren't gonna pass the law to change it to
Speaker 1: require Rhodon for the records. We went back to Rhodeland
Speaker 1: and said, look what happened, and we walked him through
Speaker 1: this is exactly what we're talking about. Within twenty four hours,
Speaker 1: at passed the bill. Rhode Island now puts the records
Speaker 1: into the system. Industry did that. Nobody else. I'm really
Speaker 1: eager to get onto Sunday Hunting and lead AMO, but uh,
Speaker 1: stay on this for a second. Are there are their
Speaker 1: Second Amendment Advocate I'm not asked. I know the answer
Speaker 1: to this, but give me their perspective. There are Second
Speaker 1: amenber advocates though, who are who presumably are uneasy with
Speaker 1: Fixed Nicks. Yes, there there was. What what's that argument
Speaker 1: there that it's like a it's like a government imposition
Speaker 1: on your right. Well, there's a small segment um within
Speaker 1: the Second Amendment community doesn't think there should be background checks.
Speaker 1: We happen not to agree with that. The argument that
Speaker 1: we heard an opposition to the Fixed next legislation, or
Speaker 1: that we hear when work. The issue in the States is,
Speaker 1: you know, uh that the people who aren't prohibited their
Speaker 1: records are going to get into the system, and then
Speaker 1: people are going to be denied, um, the ability to
Speaker 1: purchase a fire when they're not a prohibited person. But
Speaker 1: there is an appeal process um that works very well.
Speaker 1: In fact, NIX is just substantially improved that they demonstrated
Speaker 1: for us when we went to visit them to the
Speaker 1: end of October. So and nothing in Fixed NIX is
Speaker 1: about expanding. In fact, we're very clear about that. We're
Speaker 1: not looking to expand who is prohibited. We just want
Speaker 1: the records of those that are under current law prohibited
Speaker 1: put into the system, so the dealer knows that when
Speaker 1: they transfer the firearm, they can rely upon the accuracy
Speaker 1: of the background check, so they're not selling a gun
Speaker 1: transferring a gun to a prohibited person. And either the
Speaker 1: fixed next legislation passed overwhelmingly seventy eight co sponsors in
Speaker 1: the Senate. You couldn't get seventy eight senators to sign
Speaker 1: a birthday card, and they all got on this bill.
Speaker 1: Those who are pro and those were against. Is the
Speaker 1: Wilderness Act? Uh yeah, after twenty years of trying to
Speaker 1: get it through and the one descending vote thought it
Speaker 1: wasn't didn't go far enough. Those days are gone, man,
Speaker 1: and get a bunch of people to something. Maybe some
Speaker 1: day will return to that, But I don't know. You know,
Speaker 1: a lot of non controversial legislation passes on unanimous consent.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think if if we tried to pass
Speaker 1: the Lands Package at the end of last Congress on
Speaker 1: unanimous consent, one one or two senators blocked unanimous consent
Speaker 1: and there was no time left unanimous um. It was
Speaker 1: Senator Lee and Senator Senator Lee, and there was a
Speaker 1: very heated exchange on the floor of the Senate between
Speaker 1: UH Senator Murkowski, Senator Gardner, uh and and UH Senator Cantwell,
Speaker 1: who were the primary backers of the legislation. And there's,
Speaker 1: as you know, lots and lots in that bill, not
Speaker 1: just the range bill, which is our primary focus. But
Speaker 1: they didn't like, uh, you know, a provision. He wanted
Speaker 1: the language change, and he blocked it because you can
Speaker 1: do that in the Senate and one person can stand
Speaker 1: up in blocking animous consent um. But so okay. So
Speaker 1: now they're doing the bill again the exact same language
Speaker 1: and running it through the you know, the parliamentary process,
Speaker 1: which takes a while. But he won't be you know,
Speaker 1: he may offer amendments and uh, you know those some
Speaker 1: mementos will either get voted on or not. Um if
Speaker 1: he offers him and uh, but he can't. I don't
Speaker 1: see how we can stop a bill passing the Senate.
Speaker 1: What happens on the House now that the Democrats are
Speaker 1: are in control, whether we'll move in house natural resources
Speaker 1: remains to be seen. I hope it will because Chairman
Speaker 1: Garhovo when he was ranking in the last Congress support
Speaker 1: of the package. So hopefully, UM, that hasn't changed. We'll
Speaker 1: see hopefully we'll see Sunday hunt really important. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: was glad to see um there were allies on this
Speaker 1: issue because it drives me crazy. And I but I
Speaker 1: see that you guys have like an industry perspective where
Speaker 1: I see that you you frame it around some economic factors.
Speaker 1: That's that's how we roll. I just frame it around
Speaker 1: like that. I just frame it around what I think,
Speaker 1: you know, just my vision of America when I at
Speaker 1: that if you can on a Sunday, you should be
Speaker 1: able to go home. I just pictured that like the
Speaker 1: fact that there are states where someone can't opt, where
Speaker 1: someone can't opt to hunt. On the side, you only
Speaker 1: got screwed by Sunday hunting laws recently over the uh
Speaker 1: the Christmas and New Year holiday. I was in North Carolina,
Speaker 1: and I mean I was halfway into the truck and
Speaker 1: uh realize, I'm like, I'm better check on that sure
Speaker 1: enough privately and only. Yeah. Yeah, it's just it's the
Speaker 1: same way I live in Virginia, saying private land only
Speaker 1: on Sundays. So that launched the Sunday Hunting Initiative. We
Speaker 1: have partners in Corrational Sportsman's Foundation, their National Assembly of
Speaker 1: Sportsmen's Caucuses and r A s c I. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: or it's really the sort of team and most people
Speaker 1: in the country have no idea that there's these old
Speaker 1: colonial blue laws. Uh. And it was thirteen states. We've
Speaker 1: made progress, but all along the up and down the
Speaker 1: East coast, the original colonies. Basically, Um, there's no science
Speaker 1: behind it. You know, it's just was a vestige of
Speaker 1: colonial law. But but it was it was I have
Speaker 1: to um has to student. That had to do with
Speaker 1: like enforcing church attendance. Uh. It was religious based, you know,
Speaker 1: no alcohol, no hunting on Sundays, and so yeah, that's
Speaker 1: why it's interesting to see like very like to see
Speaker 1: deeply conservative leaning organizations in opposition to Sunday hunting because
Speaker 1: you feel like it would put them up against the
Speaker 1: thing where they're where they're like up against a sort
Speaker 1: of religious ruling. So every it's interesting. Um, and we
Speaker 1: made great progress on our Sunday hunting and it's really
Speaker 1: important because in those states, you know, effectively for many hunters,
Speaker 1: you're doubling the hunting season. If you're you're working on
Speaker 1: you work on Monday, Friday, Saturday. You gotta take Johnny
Speaker 1: to soccer, the game or whatever. You got the honey
Speaker 1: do list, you gotta you only have Sunday. You can't
Speaker 1: haunt on Sunday, so you don't hunt, and then you
Speaker 1: don't take Johnny hunting and you don't pass down the tradition.
Speaker 1: Now something like Pennsylvania, huge number of hunting licenses. Uh,
Speaker 1: there's no Sunday hunting in Pennsylvania. So you know, we
Speaker 1: started with Virginia, then West Virginia and Maryland and North Carolina,
Speaker 1: South Carolina. We actually got a build out a committee
Speaker 1: for the first time in the Pennsylvania Senate eight three
Speaker 1: yesterday yesterday. Is that's an enormous step forward for now.
Speaker 1: Is the opposition the religious community or the interesting thing
Speaker 1: is it is, uh the opposition varies from state to state.
Speaker 1: In Pennsylvania, the primary opposition is the Farm Bureau. In
Speaker 1: North Carolina it was the Christian right. I can't tell
Speaker 1: you why, they just know we don't do that in
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania just because we don't, just because we don't know,
Speaker 1: we don't. Uh So in Maine. Uh, oddly enough, one
Speaker 1: of the major forces in opposition is the guides. They
Speaker 1: don't want to work on Sunday. You don't have to
Speaker 1: work on Sunday. Don't was making you work on Sunday.
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding. So the farm Bureau that I don't
Speaker 1: want the In Pactsylvania, the farm Bureau would say, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, the farmers don't want to be disturbed
Speaker 1: on Sunday because if you know, they don't want people
Speaker 1: coming on the land on Sunday. Or you know, if
Speaker 1: they shoot the deer one piece of property and it
Speaker 1: goes onto the farmer's property, they gotta they gotta get
Speaker 1: permission to go retrieve the deer. Right. So that but um,
Speaker 1: but it really wasn't a persuasive argument. We said we'll
Speaker 1: put well, we'll pay for signs. Do you can put
Speaker 1: up saying you know, no hunting. You know you can
Speaker 1: post no hunting on Sundays and you know, so a
Speaker 1: lot of times it's okay, private land, We'll just do
Speaker 1: private land to take whatever we can get or public land.
Speaker 1: And we got to change in North Carolina, you know,
Speaker 1: private land because the party argument we would encounter it
Speaker 1: be from like hikers or a questrian people like to
Speaker 1: ride their horses in public. You know, say, well, you
Speaker 1: know we don't want to get you know, accidentally shot
Speaker 1: by a hunter. You know, Well, it doesn't happen on
Speaker 1: you know, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. What makes
Speaker 1: you think it's gonna happen on Sunday. Well, that's our day.
Speaker 1: We should be our day. Um. So we you know,
Speaker 1: we sort of whatever we can get, you know, and
Speaker 1: then just go back and try again from more later.
Speaker 1: But we made great progress. Um. You know, yesterday's vote
Speaker 1: in Pennsylvania was it was an enormous step forward for us.
Speaker 1: Explain what happened there from one of our one of
Speaker 1: our guys, Brodie Henderson, he's Pennsylvania. We've got a couple
Speaker 1: of Pennsylvania gays we worked with. We talked about this
Speaker 1: all the time. So we were able finally to get
Speaker 1: a bill out a committee in the Senate eight to
Speaker 1: three in favor of, you know, giving the State Fishing
Speaker 1: Game Agency the authority will permit Sunday hunting, doesn't require
Speaker 1: I mean, the Commission wants it. They support it. They
Speaker 1: publicly come out and said they support it. So but
Speaker 1: to your earlier point, so one of the things we
Speaker 1: did his industry is to try to say, you know,
Speaker 1: that's access we want to pass on the tradition. You know,
Speaker 1: you can do all these other things on Sunday. You'll
Speaker 1: play golf, you can fish. You know, golf, by the way,
Speaker 1: is a four letter word. Those are not the birdies
Speaker 1: we think you should be shooting. You can go shooting,
Speaker 1: but you can't hunt. So but then part of what
Speaker 1: we did was to show the economic impact allowing Sunday
Speaker 1: hunting with and it's significant. Right, So you look at
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania and so what happens is if you're in New York,
Speaker 1: you won't go on a hunting trip on a weekend
Speaker 1: to Pennsylvania because you can only hunt on Saturday. Right,
Speaker 1: So Pennsylvania says that kind of an opportunity. New York
Speaker 1: ust Averigh frictions so high used averished factions and they've
Speaker 1: been shipped away at over time about I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe ten years ago, we put a real focus on
Speaker 1: like how can we really what's the way we can
Speaker 1: really drive the needle on hunting and said it's it's changing,
Speaker 1: sunny honey laws on the East coast. And you know,
Speaker 1: we're making progress, not easy. We're still fighting into Maryland
Speaker 1: right now. Maryland is there are some counties and so
Speaker 1: now there's the push to finish up all the rest
Speaker 1: of the counties, to let the counties go, and it's
Speaker 1: it's that progression here and there. So used to be
Speaker 1: Maryland wouldn't even touch it, and now they were in
Speaker 1: county by county. We're pushing a little bit more and
Speaker 1: more as well. I mean they're pushing a part of
Speaker 1: that same Families a Field program. You're pushing the mentorship
Speaker 1: bills to try and allow so that way you can
Speaker 1: take your ten year old out hunting. Where you can
Speaker 1: take someone even an adult who wants to get out
Speaker 1: and hunt the first time, and they don't have to buy.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a try before you buy program. You
Speaker 1: can buy a license at a reduced rate as long
Speaker 1: as you're going out with someone who's gonna mentor you
Speaker 1: through that process. We did that in Michigan this fast
Speaker 1: spring and it was great. It was real nice. So
Speaker 1: we had some guys never been had never been hunting.
Speaker 1: We're curious about it, um, you know, for for a
Speaker 1: bunch of reasons. It was they lived in California. It
Speaker 1: was like a bunch of reasons that would have been
Speaker 1: hard for them to get through, just owners for them
Speaker 1: to like, hey, let's go hunting turkeys all of a
Speaker 1: sudden and then do hunter safety. But in this case,
Speaker 1: with a mentor program, you're able to you know, you're
Speaker 1: with them, you're physically next to each other, able to
Speaker 1: take them out on the first hunt, and which winds
Speaker 1: up being and that kind of relationship. I feel that
Speaker 1: that mentords standing next to each other relationship, its being
Speaker 1: like very educational. It's around even you know, around safety issues.
Speaker 1: In fact, I think if you're gonna have someone who
Speaker 1: if you're gonna have an experienced hunter with an inexperienced hunter,
Speaker 1: I feel that that time together is as instructive or
Speaker 1: probably more instructive at that phase and their journey than
Speaker 1: sitting through like right class, the incubation of a new hunter.
Speaker 1: You're you're teaching them the traditions, you're teaching them the rules,
Speaker 1: the left and right. So this is where you step,
Speaker 1: this is where you don't step. This is how you
Speaker 1: carry your rifle. This is when you load your rifle.
Speaker 1: This is when you don't have your rifle loaded. Those
Speaker 1: are all the things that we were we were taught
Speaker 1: by our folks when we don't want out and learned
Speaker 1: from the folks you taught us and and there's a
Speaker 1: little bit of a gap. We want to we want
Speaker 1: to kind of close. I mean, you know, someone's not
Speaker 1: gonna wake up one morning and say I think I'll
Speaker 1: try hunting. You wouldn't know the first thing right, how
Speaker 1: to get started. So people do do that and they
Speaker 1: struggle successful, but mostly you know that's the exception, right,
Speaker 1: people just say I don't play golf because I can
Speaker 1: go get a lesson right down the street. So mentoring
Speaker 1: is critical to passing the tradition and the heritage on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like, I like the program, and I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I notice to talk about And in this case, there
Speaker 1: was any age big factor one year. These guys were
Speaker 1: you know, guys, you can do it some some states
Speaker 1: gold to two years. You could do it too before
Speaker 1: you had to show up with the problem Hunter. Yes,
Speaker 1: I don't have the numbers in front of me. But um.
Speaker 1: There was a press conference at SACO about Families of
Speaker 1: Field and reached a milestone and a number of apprentice
Speaker 1: licenses and uh it's been very successful. Uh and the
Speaker 1: work continues to and there was a lot of resistance
Speaker 1: from Hunter ed guys um to the Families of Field effort.
Speaker 1: Let's just oh yeah, but but it's a collaborative effort,
Speaker 1: and it's the seffest part of its Sportsman's Alliance, National
Speaker 1: Wild Turkey Federation and the Congressional Sportsman's Foundation and their
Speaker 1: National Assembly Sportsman's Caucuses, and the work continues. My resistance
Speaker 1: to it was based on bitterness because when I was
Speaker 1: a kid had in Michigan. In Michigan, when I was
Speaker 1: if you had four teen, yeah, my dad did pay
Speaker 1: a whole lot of attention to that. But you're supposed
Speaker 1: to be fourteen to rifle hunt deer, And all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, I'm talking to buddies of mind from back
Speaker 1: home and they're out there with their ten and eleven
Speaker 1: year old I'm like, dude, what do you do. You're
Speaker 1: supposed to wait forever, you know, I mean in your
Speaker 1: teens and still watching your days, watching your dad. What
Speaker 1: really but drove the families of field was you know,
Speaker 1: studies coming out that showed that, you know, if you
Speaker 1: did not get a young person in the field by
Speaker 1: a certain age, you lost them. Right They're they're playing
Speaker 1: video games, they're getting you know, their their time is
Speaker 1: occupied by other things, and it's very hard to get them,
Speaker 1: you know, the start when their sixteen seventeen, right that
Speaker 1: you gotta engage them earlier, otherwise they're you know, you're
Speaker 1: not gonna be able to do. There's two bunch competition
Speaker 1: out there and it's it's proven to be pretty successful.
Speaker 1: Where where I live. My boy can no boy. My
Speaker 1: boy am a girl and my other boy can hunt
Speaker 1: with me when they're ten and then hunt unaccompanied after
Speaker 1: they do hunters safe once or so. He's kind of
Speaker 1: in the days man, and there's a youth there's a
Speaker 1: youth season there for deer, youth season for waterfowl. So
Speaker 1: that's gonna be a lot of fun. Uh So we
Speaker 1: did Sunday hunting. We jumped ahead of ourselves and got
Speaker 1: into some youth stuff. Let ammo. Yeah, big, big challenge,
Speaker 1: but some would say it's the biggest threat to the
Speaker 1: industry banning lead ammunition like we saw in California. So
Speaker 1: our you know, our view on on the issue is
Speaker 1: is this. You mentioned the point earlier. You manage wildlife populations,
Speaker 1: you don't manage to prevent harm to individual animals. Because
Speaker 1: if wildlife management becomes about preventing harm to individual animals,
Speaker 1: guess what you just made the argument for banning hunting
Speaker 1: right and fences and glass windows. So so our view
Speaker 1: is that decisions on this issue should be evidence based,
Speaker 1: based on science that's clear that shows that there's an
Speaker 1: adverse population impact, and then if that's the case, the
Speaker 1: Phish and Game Agency should look at what are the
Speaker 1: options available to address the problem to to turn it around,
Speaker 1: and that may or may not include banning ammunition certain
Speaker 1: types of ammunition, but you should look at what are
Speaker 1: the full spectrum of of things you can do. And
Speaker 1: then we think a factor and the decision should be
Speaker 1: what is the you know, what is effective and least
Speaker 1: costly to the hunter, because if you know increase cost,
Speaker 1: you know, just basic economics, right, you're you're gonna have
Speaker 1: less participation that may or may not result in banning
Speaker 1: lead ammunition in an area. And we think the the
Speaker 1: solution should be is local lost is necessary? Um, you know,
Speaker 1: if you've got a problem in a particular localized area,
Speaker 1: that doesn't mean you have to adopt the statewide band.
Speaker 1: California started in the Condor region and then expanded statewide.
Speaker 1: We think the question that uh a good part of
Speaker 1: the push for banning lead ammunition comes from the anti
Speaker 1: hunting groups. I mean, when the Humane Society of the
Speaker 1: United States, UM, you know, support spanning lead ammunition and
Speaker 1: wants people to hunt with copper ammunition, I mean, are
Speaker 1: you serious. I mean, now hs US is okay with
Speaker 1: hunting as long as you're not using lead ammunition. Let's
Speaker 1: laughable on its face. So if there's a part and
Speaker 1: we don't see population impacts, right, I mean, even with
Speaker 1: the condor, it's clear that lead. They were getting lead
Speaker 1: from other sources, paint chips on on the water towers.
Speaker 1: And the core of the basis for the law in
Speaker 1: California was um a study that is totally flawed and
Speaker 1: not credible that was pushed by the folks out there
Speaker 1: too became the basis for why they banned lead ammunition
Speaker 1: from hunting in the entire state. And we said, uh, look,
Speaker 1: if you do this, here's the consequences. You're gonna people
Speaker 1: are gonna hunt less, and they're gonna hunt outside the state.
Speaker 1: And end there is not enough lead ammunition or non
Speaker 1: let ammunition produced in the country to meet the demand
Speaker 1: of hunters in California. So the industry makes non lead
Speaker 1: ammunition alternative ammunition. In response, to consumer demand, and that
Speaker 1: demand amounts to less than one percent of the entire
Speaker 1: ammunition market. Is that right? Yes? What if I when
Speaker 1: you break it down to the center fire, so nine
Speaker 1: of ammunition is um metallic lead ammunition, five is alternative ammunition.
Speaker 1: Four of the five percent of shot hill. The rest
Speaker 1: is uh, you know, for it's some of its frangible
Speaker 1: ammunition a small part. But that's that's how much demander
Speaker 1: is for non let ammunition. And our view is, look,
Speaker 1: if hunters want to use alternative ammunition, that should be
Speaker 1: their choice, right, I mean, and the initial will make
Speaker 1: it in response to consumer demand, like any any other product.
Speaker 1: That's the thing that's like an annoyance I find in
Speaker 1: this debate is if people are it's becomes so contentious
Speaker 1: that if people talk about how they use monolithic bullets
Speaker 1: or use copper, some people feel that just a simple
Speaker 1: fact of you using it as condemnation of lead, even
Speaker 1: though I first became introduced to it, certainly by people
Speaker 1: who are just motivated by performance. Right. But it's like,
Speaker 1: but sometimes people jump on you, you know, if you
Speaker 1: use solid copper, they'll act like somehow you don't support lead,
Speaker 1: And I think it's just like one of those things
Speaker 1: that it's just a sensitive world because we're all like
Speaker 1: really embroiled and it's a passion it's a passion based thing,
Speaker 1: and there's sensitivities afloat, But it just winds up being
Speaker 1: like a really interesting conversation of individual like to say,
Speaker 1: like individually, for whatever reason, performance um concerns, and they
Speaker 1: don't seem to be the people have concerns about ingesting
Speaker 1: bullet lead absent any documentation that hunters have elevated lead
Speaker 1: levels doesn't exist. In fact, quite the contrary, right, But regardless,
Speaker 1: like you might whatever reason, like someone might decide to
Speaker 1: do it. And I think that again, industry will match
Speaker 1: up with people's choices, but there's there's needs to be
Speaker 1: ability to say, like, this is what I personally choose.
Speaker 1: Does that mean that I want to legislate it? Does
Speaker 1: that mean I want to legislate it and make it
Speaker 1: mandatory for all people to conform to the decisions that
Speaker 1: i've personally may And we think it's the hunter's choice
Speaker 1: if they want to use that product for performance or
Speaker 1: because they think it's more environmentally sensitive. You know, the
Speaker 1: more the industry will respond to consumer demand and more
Speaker 1: will be produced. Those just are the facts that it's
Speaker 1: less than one percent. We don't think it's really you know,
Speaker 1: this should be a decision for the state fish and
Speaker 1: game agencies. They're the professionals, they're the ones with the
Speaker 1: expertise and wildlife management. We don't think it should be
Speaker 1: regulated by legislature because other you know, that's you know,
Speaker 1: that's why the state agencies exist. Although I mean if
Speaker 1: you had an out of control state agency, maybe you
Speaker 1: would need legislation, uh, if they weren't making a science,
Speaker 1: science based decision. But you know, so it's you manage populations.
Speaker 1: If there's a population impact, and you determine it's coming
Speaker 1: you know, from lead, I mean a's and what are
Speaker 1: the options? So for example dove you know, if you
Speaker 1: ban um lead shot for dove hunting, I mean, it
Speaker 1: makes dove hunting really expensive, right, and so what happened?
Speaker 1: What would happen to dove hunting? Here we go down precipitously.
Speaker 1: Do you need to ban lead for you know, dove hunting? Well,
Speaker 1: I don't see any evidence of adverse population impacts on doves.
Speaker 1: I mean people have been shooting doves in Argentina for example,
Speaker 1: like crazy amounts of lead shot and there there's no
Speaker 1: shortage of doves in Argentina, for example, both Harvested Game
Speaker 1: Animal America and I've talked to, you know, the former
Speaker 1: director of Fish and Wildlife, like because Missouri, for example,
Speaker 1: was looking at, you know, banning the use of lead
Speaker 1: shot for dove hunting. And you know, are there other
Speaker 1: things you can do short of banning the product that
Speaker 1: would adequately address the problem. And one of the things
Speaker 1: you can do till the soil, right, turn the soil
Speaker 1: over so it's not accessible, or rotate the duff fields. Um.
Speaker 1: So there, you know, there are things that can be
Speaker 1: done short of an outright ban. And again it there's
Speaker 1: you know, shouldn't ban it unless there's population impacts. What's
Speaker 1: your perspective? We hear a lot in this like the
Speaker 1: bald eagle is used as the symbol of the other side, right,
Speaker 1: It's evokes a lot of emotion, right, and it's eagle
Speaker 1: populations are soaring, pardon the pun, right, And most states
Speaker 1: don't even bother counting nesting pairs anymorekers, they're so plentiful.
Speaker 1: But we see story after story after story, you know, um,
Speaker 1: and they're almost indistinguishable it's like a cookie cutter. And
Speaker 1: this is coming from you know, from anti hunting groups
Speaker 1: were convinced, you know that they hold up a single eagle,
Speaker 1: um that's in a in a you know Avian rescues
Speaker 1: thing and our place, and they extrapolate that, you know,
Speaker 1: there's this big problem and you have to band lead
Speaker 1: ammunition when a reality, you know, the populations of eagles
Speaker 1: are soaring, and there was that study in Iowa done
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago. You know, it's like like
Speaker 1: it's a guy at federal who works on conspation issues,
Speaker 1: Ryan Bronson, and you know Ryan, great guy, he often said,
Speaker 1: and it's some of these state fishing Game agency means
Speaker 1: that we go to is like, look, if you look
Speaker 1: for uh, sick people in the hospital, guess what you're
Speaker 1: gonna find sick people. But you can't extrapolate from the
Speaker 1: sick person in the hospital that there's this problem outside
Speaker 1: of the hospital. And that's what that study in Iowa did.
Speaker 1: It actually went out and looked at you know, you know,
Speaker 1: the eagle population and said there was fine, there wasn't
Speaker 1: any evidence of a problem. So they know, they find
Speaker 1: one eagle, they bring it and they extrapolate from there
Speaker 1: and say, well, we gotta band lead ammunition when you know,
Speaker 1: and it's the hunters and the conservation dollars back pivoting
Speaker 1: back to Pittman Robertson, who paid for the restoration of
Speaker 1: the Eagle Hunters dead. You can think a hunt it right.
Speaker 1: So you're gonna you're gonna ban traditional ammunition without evidence
Speaker 1: that there's a population fact, and there's even less evidence
Speaker 1: that there's a human health risk. I mean to study
Speaker 1: the CDC did in in North Dakota, hunters had lower
Speaker 1: than the average, than the pop than the control group,
Speaker 1: lower than the average person walking around on the street.
Speaker 1: Everybody in this we all have some level of lead
Speaker 1: in or butt, right, it's but probably probably a uh
Speaker 1: factor predominantly rural, yes, so, and hunters who had hunted
Speaker 1: the longest had even lower levels. So if there was
Speaker 1: this idea that well, if you keep eating game harvested
Speaker 1: with traditional ammunition, lead's going to build up in your blood,
Speaker 1: well then these hunters that have been hunting the longest
Speaker 1: should have had higher readings, and I actually had lower readings.
Speaker 1: So that study probably like diminished exposure to all diminished
Speaker 1: exposure to all the other ways you'd just led. And
Speaker 1: nobody in the study had a lead level that was
Speaker 1: remotely approaching the threshold of concern for a child, let
Speaker 1: alone adults. Right, And there was one person in the study,
Speaker 1: as I recall, um, that had levels about the level
Speaker 1: of concern for a child, but this was an adult.
Speaker 1: But they had no that they couldn't say that lead
Speaker 1: was sourced from consuming game. And I always been checking
Speaker 1: the blood lead levels of their people in the state
Speaker 1: for years, right, a lot of hunting in Iowa. They've
Speaker 1: never seen it. There's never been a documented case of
Speaker 1: anybody in the United States having elevated lead levels, let
Speaker 1: alone lead poisoning from consuming game harvested with traditional ammunition.
Speaker 1: So what was your perspective in the early nineties when
Speaker 1: they banned lead ammunition for migratory waterfowl? So, yeah, you
Speaker 1: it predates me. But what I've heard is that, um,
Speaker 1: that this is just what I've heard in over the years,
Speaker 1: is that there really wasn't good science that that it
Speaker 1: was having a population impact. But basically came down to
Speaker 1: judge saying either you agree to this or I'm gonna
Speaker 1: ban waterfowl hunting nationwide, and and so sort of that's
Speaker 1: how it came to be. But I mean, we're not
Speaker 1: debating you know this issue now thirty years later, right, So, um,
Speaker 1: my dad said that, but he did have an impact
Speaker 1: on on duck hunting in the United States. My dad
Speaker 1: talked about because I was just starting hunt then, um,
Speaker 1: just starting legally hunt. My dad talk of people quiting hunting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the people adjusted to it over time. But so,
Speaker 1: but as an organization, what's your what's your perspective on um? Like,
Speaker 1: you represent industry, okay, and you want things to be
Speaker 1: smooth for the industry. What is your perspective bond cases
Speaker 1: and that, Like, let's say around letters other hypotheticals, Uh,
Speaker 1: where wildlife management agency is making a wildlife based decision.
Speaker 1: Here's a good hypothetical. I heard a story one time.
Speaker 1: I heard a story that Florida used to Florida that
Speaker 1: thing where they allowed rifle hunting for turkeys in the spring. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's just say there's a there's a there's a state
Speaker 1: that allows rifle hunting for turkeys in the spring. And
Speaker 1: someone points out that you don't wear hunters orange when
Speaker 1: you're hunting turkeys because they see the orange. And there
Speaker 1: s movement. Um, people are on the ground, people are
Speaker 1: mimicking the sounds of female turkeys, and the turkey hunting community.
Speaker 1: Let's say, in a hypothetical state, the turkey hunting community says, man,
Speaker 1: let's just keep let's just stick at the shotguns, because
Speaker 1: then we're everyone's safer out in the woods. And this
Speaker 1: is traditionally, you know, all across the councient people huntle
Speaker 1: with shotguns the spring, and we're going to conform to
Speaker 1: that norm as suggested by turkey hunters, the game agencies
Speaker 1: behind it. Now, what if someone looks and says, what
Speaker 1: might be a hunter issue, a game management issue, but
Speaker 1: someone looks and says, no, that's a gun issue. You're
Speaker 1: infringing gun rights. How do you, like, how do you
Speaker 1: navigate that? If? If you do that, the state fishing
Speaker 1: game agencies, you know, I have the authority to regulate
Speaker 1: the seasons, regulate the implements used for taking game. We
Speaker 1: have no problem with that. So if that were going on,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think it's a it's a safety issue, right,
Speaker 1: And the bullets from a rifle travel a lot further
Speaker 1: than pellets from shotgun, so instinctively you don't see that
Speaker 1: and think that's a fight. I'm gonna wait into That's
Speaker 1: not a fight we would get involved in. I mean,
Speaker 1: thinking about it, it's even even where I live in Virginia,
Speaker 1: there are some counties that are closer here to to
Speaker 1: the DC area where you can only hunt with archery
Speaker 1: equipment because it's so so so densely populated. And then
Speaker 1: as you started to get a little bit further out, okay,
Speaker 1: you can hunt with a shotgun. And then once you
Speaker 1: get to these counties, okay, now you can hunt with
Speaker 1: a rifle. We don't have an issue with that. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's a safety issue. But you could see as
Speaker 1: much as uncomfortable with that stuff. You could see if
Speaker 1: that becoming a tool used by anti hunters. And so
Speaker 1: it's like, I guess that's the kind of the broader
Speaker 1: point I'm making is you always need to consider the
Speaker 1: source some things because there's ideas, like they said, like
Speaker 1: the abuse of the abuse of lead AMMO bands in California,
Speaker 1: where there's there's an isolated instance or an isolated case
Speaker 1: with migratory waterfowl. Say, we're looking like from a management perspective,
Speaker 1: this makes sense. Someone then looks and it says huh um,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna now use manipulate this and use this as
Speaker 1: a general tool to curb people's rights. You're seeing that
Speaker 1: half right now in Oregon. So in Oregon, they've got
Speaker 1: several bills that we're trying to push back on that
Speaker 1: would include, uh, you know, a fourteen day waiting period,
Speaker 1: a limit of only twenty rounds a month, and five
Speaker 1: round magazine capacity shot around a skeet traps season. But
Speaker 1: on top of that, you're also looking at their their
Speaker 1: debating right now where they're going to have a ban
Speaker 1: on lead immunition for anyone between the ages of eighteen.
Speaker 1: I know that, and they the argument they make is
Speaker 1: its public health. See, this is what I'm this is
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about where you wind up in new
Speaker 1: situations where it's just it's like so clearly coming from
Speaker 1: the perspective of someone who is like I want to
Speaker 1: whittle away at I want to whittle away at this
Speaker 1: community or whittle away at people's rights. What are the
Speaker 1: things I can use to get there? So what we're
Speaker 1: saying is, uh, Connecticut, they was a bill introduced to
Speaker 1: a fifty tax and ammunition. Um, we've seen that in Seattle,
Speaker 1: Cook County, Illinois outside of Chicago, and you know, we
Speaker 1: see this in Oregon. The other thing we're seeing is,
Speaker 1: you know, we saw it in Florida. You know, say
Speaker 1: you cannot purchase long guns until one. So federal law
Speaker 1: now says you can't purchase a hanggun until one. So
Speaker 1: now you're eighteen nineteen and twenty. Federal law now says
Speaker 1: you have to be twenty one to purchase the hand
Speaker 1: control right. Yeah, so if you pan under state law
Speaker 1: was like in Florida for example, and there's lawsuit pending
Speaker 1: the eighteen nineteen and twenty and you can't purchase a
Speaker 1: long gun, you also can't purchase handgun. You're an adult,
Speaker 1: you could be in the military or you know, you
Speaker 1: could be the spouse of somebody in the military, you
Speaker 1: could have a child, you could you know, Um, you
Speaker 1: can't purchase a gun for target shooting, you can't purchase
Speaker 1: a gun for hunting, and you can't purchase a gun
Speaker 1: for self defense. To us, that is clearly a violation
Speaker 1: of the Second Amendment. We don't even think that's a
Speaker 1: close call. So again, you're looking at someone eighteen years old,
Speaker 1: fully vested in their rights. They can vote, freedom of speech, freedom,
Speaker 1: exercise of religion, free assembly. But you can't exercise your
Speaker 1: Second Amendment rights. You can't buy a gun until you
Speaker 1: twenty one. I wonder why we're twenty one because the
Speaker 1: drinking laws. I think it's an arbitrary number that they
Speaker 1: picked out of the air. I mean, you know, in
Speaker 1: long before Hella was decided, right, So you also can't
Speaker 1: buy handguns across their lines. I'm trying to think of
Speaker 1: how I had I had even from a dealer seventeen.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to think of how I guess my dad
Speaker 1: just gave me any But you couldn't. You cannot walk
Speaker 1: into a gun store license e and purchase a handgun
Speaker 1: unless one and you're in my Tanna. You cannot drive
Speaker 1: into Wyoming, go to a license dealer in Wyoming and
Speaker 1: purchase a handgun from that dealer, even if you're older.
Speaker 1: You cannot buy a handgun across state lines. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean in case of point, when I was in
Speaker 1: the military, I could buy a handgun in any state
Speaker 1: I was stationed in because virtue of my my military orders. Now,
Speaker 1: my wife, I was in a Hampshire resident while I
Speaker 1: was in the military. My wife is a Texas resident,
Speaker 1: she maintained her Texas residency. For her to buy a handgun,
Speaker 1: she would either have to go back to Texas or
Speaker 1: she would have to change her residency every three years
Speaker 1: every time we moved. So you're putting that a huge
Speaker 1: burden on people. What is the what is the issue
Speaker 1: with the limit? The Oregon thing which I can't picture's
Speaker 1: gonna get youwhere? Or am I wrong? The twenty rounds?
Speaker 1: So what is it again? So you can only buy
Speaker 1: twenty rounds a month at Oregon State? Shock on? She
Speaker 1: state built five? One? That one out? And again, how
Speaker 1: do you enforce next month? So that's not gonna go anywhere?
Speaker 1: Is it? I would not I would not say no,
Speaker 1: not in Oregon? Right now? Yeah, So, I mean it's
Speaker 1: a thing about it is we go to We're going
Speaker 1: to go out duck hunting, and I'm a terrible shot
Speaker 1: and I can't shoot anything. So I blow through twenty
Speaker 1: rounds right away, trying to shoot my first two ducks,
Speaker 1: and then I'm like, I'm out of AMMO. I look
Speaker 1: at you and say, Steven, let me get some shal
Speaker 1: from you so I can continue shoot. Am I violation
Speaker 1: to law now? Because I'm now transferring AMMO to me?
Speaker 1: Are you violating law because you're answering handing AMMO to me?
Speaker 1: I guess I can't ask you to pay me back
Speaker 1: for well, he's only got twenty himself. So luck what
Speaker 1: other uh? What other things are you guys watching for
Speaker 1: that make you? Um, you know, I guess like not
Speaker 1: not ones that not pieces of legislation. Again, man, I
Speaker 1: don't know, that's very hard for me to picture. Uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know the the political climate there.
Speaker 1: That's very hard for me to picture. Passing California. It's
Speaker 1: it's tough your listeners that live in Oregon and pick
Speaker 1: up a phone, call your state senator and call your representative.
Speaker 1: Make sure they know how ridiculous that is. It includes
Speaker 1: shotgun shells. Okay, what are the what are the pieces
Speaker 1: of legislation that you're looking at? And uh, the ones
Speaker 1: you're most leria of coming up? We base you spend
Speaker 1: some time on age basis a concern attempts to ban
Speaker 1: monitors boarding rifles. We see that, you know, Um, we're
Speaker 1: looking at that and in several states, Yeah, maybe Nevada,
Speaker 1: maybe Oregon, maybe in Colorado's Colorado yep. So we're concerned
Speaker 1: about that. Um. Those are by far the most popular
Speaker 1: rifles being sold in the United States. Articulate from your
Speaker 1: perspective on it, it's a semi automatic rifle. UM. They
Speaker 1: are like the ninety four and that was in place
Speaker 1: for ten years. They would be banning the products based
Speaker 1: on cosmetic features. There's no um effect on how the
Speaker 1: fire and functions. Semi Automatic firems have been in civilian
Speaker 1: possession for well over a hundred years. UH. The studies
Speaker 1: that were done by the government on the Clinton gun
Speaker 1: band showed that it had absolutely no impact on reducing
Speaker 1: crime in the United States. We also had a magazine
Speaker 1: capacity restriction for ten years. It had absolutely no impact
Speaker 1: on reducing crime. Uh. It's that no impact on reducing
Speaker 1: crime in the states that that have passed it. UM,
Speaker 1: So you're just denying people a rifle that they want
Speaker 1: to purchase for lawful purposes. Primarily target shooting is the
Speaker 1: main use, increasingly hunting, and also for UM personal protective
Speaker 1: self defense. I was, you know, I was, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I was out of high school but didn't follow things
Speaker 1: as closely. Then. What did the night ban was that
Speaker 1: at the time was adoption rates of a are so
Speaker 1: low that there wasn't any resistance or was that like
Speaker 1: a contentious It was extremely contentious. I didn't know if
Speaker 1: it was like one of those things where it wasn't
Speaker 1: They weren't widespread, you still it kind of went on
Speaker 1: not unnoticed, but was grown in popularity since the sun set,
Speaker 1: for partly because the sunset, and then also largely as
Speaker 1: we talked earlier, people that served in the military came
Speaker 1: back from overseas or being in military and wanted to
Speaker 1: purchase these firearms for target shooting, primarily. More than sixteen
Speaker 1: million modern sporting rifles are in private ownership today, more
Speaker 1: than sixteen million, sixteen million just since ninety four. They've
Speaker 1: they've been on the commercial market since nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 1: There's a nineteen sixty one Cult Sport had out there
Speaker 1: talking about hunting with the cult Sporter rifle, which was
Speaker 1: a nifty What what do people do in states where
Speaker 1: you know, okay, like if you're hunting, uh, you hunt waterfowl,
Speaker 1: you have a three shot limit, so you can only
Speaker 1: have three shots in the sun. And that's a not
Speaker 1: a vestige. I mean, it has to do with in
Speaker 1: order to have plenty of opportunity for everyone to hunt.
Speaker 1: State game agencies need to in federal you know, in
Speaker 1: this case US Fishing and Wildlife Service, they take measures
Speaker 1: to to limit efficacy so that you can spread that.
Speaker 1: So it's like this matter we are here like fair chase,
Speaker 1: which is a problematic term, but fair share, right, You're
Speaker 1: you're expanding things. So if you have states that have
Speaker 1: MAGA like states that have magazine capacities, what do a
Speaker 1: R hunters do if you have a state where you
Speaker 1: have a four shot limit, so you, um, you know,
Speaker 1: models with smaller magazines that are you know, cam out
Speaker 1: out and uh, you know sold for the hunting market,
Speaker 1: or you just have a larger magazine, but you can
Speaker 1: only have so many rounds and people people produce that
Speaker 1: I've never I've never hunted the one I've shot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's a small part of the hunting market.
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's yeah, but I've hunted where they are,
Speaker 1: So I've hunted hunted predators. I've hunted hogs with him. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know, people have hunted big game with them.
Speaker 1: They come you know the other side, you know, they
Speaker 1: they don't understand that it comes in different calipers, right.
Speaker 1: I mean, like what we did an exercise at a
Speaker 1: conference of state legislators. We had a poster. We had
Speaker 1: uh Remington a r in camo. It was our fifteen
Speaker 1: udly was chambered in three or eight, and then we
Speaker 1: had a black Smith and Wesson MMPO twenty two long rifle,
Speaker 1: and we had the two bullets like on the bottom
Speaker 1: of the poster and like actual size, and we asked
Speaker 1: people state legislad or small of the country, Um, okay,
Speaker 1: you know which is you know, which goes to which
Speaker 1: they invariably said, you know, like got it wrong or which,
Speaker 1: Oh that one that's okay because it's camouflaged. The black one,
Speaker 1: well that's bad, just like you know, and they would
Speaker 1: just assume that the larger, you know, because they all
Speaker 1: they hear right in the media is you know, high
Speaker 1: powered assault rifles. Most a RS mountain sporting rifles coming
Speaker 1: two two three Remington's right. Most states will not let
Speaker 1: you hunt white tail deer with it two two three
Speaker 1: Remington's it's not powerful enough. But you know, if you're
Speaker 1: prairie dogs and things like that, that's where the people
Speaker 1: use them a lot or hog hunting Farrell hogs and
Speaker 1: which is a great, great against coyotes and kyotes. Right, So,
Speaker 1: what's what's the conversation that you have with states that
Speaker 1: are that are considering bands. There's often not much you're
Speaker 1: a conversation, all right, I mean, they just nothing you
Speaker 1: can say. They want to hear. They don't care a right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's politically expedient and they think it's
Speaker 1: popular politically, and they trade on the false information. They
Speaker 1: don't want to know the truth, they don't want to
Speaker 1: know the facts. I think an easy case to point
Speaker 1: is is how quickly New York pushed through their safegun
Speaker 1: Act and their gun loss that they're pushing through right now.
Speaker 1: They're literally days it's their introduction and three days later
Speaker 1: the governor signed again into law. There's no there's no
Speaker 1: public hearing in New York. Often the case, the bill
Speaker 1: isn't even written when they pass it. It's just like
Speaker 1: a concept, right, here's an outline of what will be
Speaker 1: in it, and then they write it later. No, No,
Speaker 1: there's no public hearings, an opportunity for people coming and
Speaker 1: testify against it in New York and the rest of
Speaker 1: the legislature doesn't see the bill it's decided by the
Speaker 1: you know, the head of the House, the head of
Speaker 1: the Senate, and the governor. And that's what happened, you know,
Speaker 1: the other day in New York. That the thing I'm
Speaker 1: a little bit guilty of is, you know, I've lived
Speaker 1: in a lot of states where you didn't feel that
Speaker 1: you're rights are being infringed down, and you become not
Speaker 1: only passive, you just you don't you're not aware of
Speaker 1: what's going on. You become passive about issues like you know,
Speaker 1: like I've just lived a lot of states like that.
Speaker 1: I spent time in Alaska, spent time in Montana. You
Speaker 1: just kind of lose sight of what happens. I lived
Speaker 1: in New York for a while, and living there, I
Speaker 1: really felt um like kind of like victimized. And you've
Speaker 1: got the sense that sort of like there was a
Speaker 1: there was a tacit governmental disapproval of your perspective and lifestyle,
Speaker 1: and it made to the point where you're engaged in
Speaker 1: lawful activities and you're someone who's accustomed to like enjoying
Speaker 1: certain liberties, you know, not enjoying, but actually sizing liberties
Speaker 1: and rights, and you come up against a system where
Speaker 1: you're like, man, I feel like the system is in
Speaker 1: some ways designed to make it very hard, to make
Speaker 1: it very hard for me to be above the books.
Speaker 1: I had to have a while where I could only
Speaker 1: you had to register everything, and you can only register
Speaker 1: them at a certain cadence. And being in the business
Speaker 1: that I'm in, um, it wound up being like restrictive,
Speaker 1: restricting me to carry about what I view as a
Speaker 1: legitimate business enterprise and being there, but then also seeing
Speaker 1: evidence of the way that the people who don't care
Speaker 1: about doing things by the book, how they operated, and
Speaker 1: it just felt like and then and then you had
Speaker 1: like this heightened sense and then you developed this like
Speaker 1: really heightened sense of losing your rights. You're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I want to there's something I should be
Speaker 1: involved in. And then eventually like out of there and
Speaker 1: take off and kind of forget about the whole thing
Speaker 1: again because you take for granted and you can have
Speaker 1: a you can have a rifle in your truck and
Speaker 1: it doesn't need to be in a hard case, and
Speaker 1: you can lend your body your gun, and you can
Speaker 1: have a closet that has a few cases the AMMO,
Speaker 1: and you lose well, I mean so at the State
Speaker 1: of the Industry UM event at the Shot Show are
Speaker 1: UM CEO Steve Sinnetti spoke to this this sort of
Speaker 1: very issue the you know the that in America, you know,
Speaker 1: I have the right to enjoy my activities. I like,
Speaker 1: you don't have to like hunting, you don't have to
Speaker 1: like shooting, but you should respect that I do. And
Speaker 1: you should respect that I should have the freedom to
Speaker 1: engage in these lawful activities. Uh. And you know you're
Speaker 1: infringing upon my liberty, my freedom. You're not making uh
Speaker 1: the world a safer place. You're just you're just restricting
Speaker 1: my rights. And you know, in America you should respect
Speaker 1: you know, you don't have to agree with other people,
Speaker 1: but you should respect that they have the right to
Speaker 1: do these things and it's not causing problems. And to
Speaker 1: your point, all these I mean you hear it. It's
Speaker 1: almost cliche, but it's true. All these con control laws
Speaker 1: only impact the law body. We had Mark Robinson, the
Speaker 1: guy from the YouTube of Greenville's, North Carolina. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm going to obey the law, but the criminal is
Speaker 1: not right. So all these laws don't don't stop the
Speaker 1: bad guy, right, I mean, the criminal is not going
Speaker 1: to pay attention to the law. I mean it's kind
Speaker 1: of definitionaliz I mean that's and so take the case
Speaker 1: now that's going to the Supreme Court. Finally after ten
Speaker 1: years from hell, are the is finally taken a case.
Speaker 1: Now that you know you have uh cabanals on the
Speaker 1: court and gorse It's on the court, they've taken a case. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: We'll see what happens. But I think it's hard to
Speaker 1: imagine in this case. It um Supreme Court doesn't rule
Speaker 1: that a slam dun't to me. I mean I hate
Speaker 1: as they say that. Yeah, I mean it's so in
Speaker 1: New York City you can only have a pistol in
Speaker 1: your home with the permit, and you can take the
Speaker 1: pistol and go to a shooting range, and there are
Speaker 1: seven in the city within the five boroughs the City
Speaker 1: of New York and back. But the gun has to
Speaker 1: be unloaded. It has to be in a heart case
Speaker 1: and locked. Right. Um. Now, let's say you live in
Speaker 1: in uh in co Op City, in in New York,
Speaker 1: which is close to the Westchester County border, and you
Speaker 1: want to go to uh shooting range. It's opened up
Speaker 1: in in Westchester County. You're outside of the city of
Speaker 1: New York. You cannot take your pistol. Put it unloaded,
Speaker 1: put it in the case, locked the case, and go
Speaker 1: to Westchester, to that range in Western County across the
Speaker 1: city line. You've committed a crime. Let's say you have
Speaker 1: a weekend house or something like in uh in the
Speaker 1: Cat's Skill. You can't take that pistol unloaded, Put it
Speaker 1: in the case, lock it, and drive to your weekend
Speaker 1: house in the Catskills. You've committed a crime. Let's say
Speaker 1: you decide, I'm out of here. I can't take New
Speaker 1: York City anymore. I'm moving to wherever, Montana. You can't
Speaker 1: you can't take that fire. You can't take that that pistol.
Speaker 1: Put it unloaded, put it in the case, locked the case,
Speaker 1: and drive to Montana. You've committed a crime. In the
Speaker 1: District Court, the Federal District Court, and the U. S.
Speaker 1: Couarter Appeals for the Second Circuit sits in Manhattan ruled
Speaker 1: that that that did not violate the Second Amendment, like
Speaker 1: because you know, the city had an interest in like,
Speaker 1: you know, not having guns on the you know, on
Speaker 1: the street. Now, I don't know one dang banger criminal
Speaker 1: drug dealer in the Five boroughs. That is a buying
Speaker 1: by that law, right, I mean, I was just making
Speaker 1: New York City safer. I just cannot imagine I had
Speaker 1: to spend that that that court doesn't. I had just
Speaker 1: been hundreds of dollars for a permit. You're lucky to
Speaker 1: get one. And there was an article just the other
Speaker 1: day about the only people uh in New York City
Speaker 1: who are able to get carry permits are you know,
Speaker 1: the rich and famous. Yeah, and there's a whole big
Speaker 1: scandal going on about bribes that we're being taking, well
Speaker 1: within the Pistol Licensing Unit, within the NYPD. You know,
Speaker 1: some guy was caught taking bribes to clear permits. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So explain the Supreme Court case it's coming up. So
Speaker 1: that's the New York soone the individual challenge, there's a
Speaker 1: lawsuit that challenged this this requirement in New York City's law.
Speaker 1: So it's not that someone got busted and appealed up
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court. I want to be able to
Speaker 1: you know, I should be able to go outside the city.
Speaker 1: The laws on constitutions right, that this list law is
Speaker 1: on constitutional on the Second Amendment and also violates the
Speaker 1: right you know, you have a constitutional right to travel,
Speaker 1: so I can't take my pistol with me and and that. Um,
Speaker 1: so they sued, They lost to the district court, they
Speaker 1: lost at the Court of Appeals, and now Supreme Court
Speaker 1: has agreed to hear the case. And I have a
Speaker 1: hard time imagining that the Supreme Court doesn't rule that
Speaker 1: that it goes too far, that that violates the Second Amendment,
Speaker 1: because the Court and Heller, for example, has already said, uh,
Speaker 1: and the McDonald you have the right. The Second Amendment
Speaker 1: involves two rights, the right to carry, the right to
Speaker 1: keep and the right to carry. Two rights. Right, it's
Speaker 1: not one, it's two rights. Uh. And that those are
Speaker 1: common law rights that predated the Constitution. The Second Amendment
Speaker 1: didn't create those rights. It protected them, right, but those
Speaker 1: rights were already existing under English common law that was
Speaker 1: adopted by the United States, you know, after we won
Speaker 1: the War of Independence. And uh, the Court has said
Speaker 1: that the right to bear arms means to have it
Speaker 1: on your person to carry it. So there have been
Speaker 1: some courts like the Seventh Circuit that you know, you
Speaker 1: you and we've seen it in in d C. You
Speaker 1: have the right to carry a firearm self protection, which
Speaker 1: is why now every single state, UM in the country
Speaker 1: has to allow some level of of right to carry.
Speaker 1: Right that the last state was I think Wisconsin and
Speaker 1: Illinois with like the last two states that you know,
Speaker 1: even in the District Columbia. So now there are different
Speaker 1: like some states are shallice you. Some states now increasingly
Speaker 1: including now most recently South Dakota, are a constitutional right
Speaker 1: to carry. You don't need the government's permission. UM. New
Speaker 1: Hampshire changed recently. UM. So that's a trend, that's positive
Speaker 1: trend that's happening. UM. And and uh. Other states that
Speaker 1: you know, you have to prove, like in Maryland, you
Speaker 1: have to like you know, prove you have a need
Speaker 1: uh and get the blessing of the government in order
Speaker 1: to carry a firearm for self protection. Interestingly, the District
Speaker 1: of Columbia, it's it's actually through the court decisions essentially
Speaker 1: a shall issue jurisdiction. They don't can't use their discretion
Speaker 1: to deny you. And we see that a lot right
Speaker 1: in other parts of the country where you know, I
Speaker 1: like you, I'll give you one. I don't like you
Speaker 1: so much you didn't contribute to my campaign or you know,
Speaker 1: like I don't like you or you're not my buddy,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna give it to you. And you see
Speaker 1: a lot of abuse to that discretion that takes place.
Speaker 1: It's probably having in California right now, is it's county
Speaker 1: by county, the county sheriff gets to decide, Well, Los
Speaker 1: Angeles County, good luck. You know, you go out to
Speaker 1: current county where it's more rural, and the county sheriff
Speaker 1: out there is good with it. He'll he'll unless he's
Speaker 1: got a need for you to not carry, he's gonna
Speaker 1: give you an apartment. So you're you know, your constitution
Speaker 1: rights shouldn't be determined by the happenstance of geography. Remember
Speaker 1: years ago, when my father went to get his conceived permit,
Speaker 1: he had to go up in front of the like, uh,
Speaker 1: he had to go to the sheriff's office to go
Speaker 1: up in front of like a four Some states have
Speaker 1: that Connecticut. This is a long time, but yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: he had to go and uh and he went from
Speaker 1: I can't remember who it was, but like he went
Speaker 1: down the sheriff's office and they had a panel of
Speaker 1: people with the conduct a little interview and he got
Speaker 1: a he got his his concealed carrier, I remember, and
Speaker 1: then but the only thing he had with the twenty two.
Speaker 1: To buy my first handgun in North Carolina, I had
Speaker 1: to get permission from the county sheriff to buy just
Speaker 1: to buy a handgun. Lots changes. Yeah, only what do
Speaker 1: you got, man? I guess The one thing we haven't
Speaker 1: touched on, maybe we could touch on is what's UH
Speaker 1: the NSF doing in a proactive way about gun violence. So, actually,
Speaker 1: the industry is the long history of of having real
Speaker 1: solutions and pursuing initiatives that you know, will we think
Speaker 1: make for saying for communities. UH So one exam apple
Speaker 1: is um our Project Child Safe campaign, which we've been
Speaker 1: doing since about n where we the industry distribute UM
Speaker 1: firearm safety education kits that include a free gunlock, a
Speaker 1: cable style gunlock which fits the most number of actions.
Speaker 1: We've distributed ready for this over thirty eight million kits,
Speaker 1: thirty eight million locks in every state and US territory,
Speaker 1: partnering with over fifteen thousand local law enforcement agencies as
Speaker 1: our distribution partner. We're very proud of that. We continue
Speaker 1: to do that and as adjunct to that, since UH
Speaker 1: ninety six ninety seven, manufacturers have been providing a locking
Speaker 1: device with each new firearm that they shipped from the factory.
Speaker 1: So between the two it's well over a hundred million
Speaker 1: locks distributed around the country. And so how would you
Speaker 1: participate in the first one? You just go down. So
Speaker 1: we get requests all the time. In fact, the demand
Speaker 1: outstrips the supply of locks by three to one. Law
Speaker 1: enforcement agencies know about the program all of the country
Speaker 1: that calls say hey, can we get you know, some locks.
Speaker 1: We're gonna do a you know, a community event, We're
Speaker 1: gonna do a safety program. We want to distribute these
Speaker 1: uh gunshot. When I was in Seattle, they would do
Speaker 1: project up there, right, So we're really really proud of that.
Speaker 1: And not exclusively, but I think we've helped contribute to
Speaker 1: the decline and accidents involving firearms UM. You know, accidental
Speaker 1: deaths involving firearms is UM at the lowest level it's
Speaker 1: ever been since record keeping began in nineteen o three.
Speaker 1: It's incredibly rare, particularly for children. You know, there are
Speaker 1: some states that don't have any accidents involving children. Accidental
Speaker 1: death voming farms. You far more likely UM to die from,
Speaker 1: you know, a host of other causes, drowning, fires, reasoning
Speaker 1: that you're um, you know, with an accident involving a firearm,
Speaker 1: it makes news when it happens, right, even involves a child.
Speaker 1: But and but so we distribute these locks. That's one
Speaker 1: program we do. We also have been doing with a
Speaker 1: t F since campaign we called Don't Lie for the
Speaker 1: Other Guy. That is to assist law enforcement in educating
Speaker 1: and training retailers UH and their staff on how to
Speaker 1: be better able to identify and prevent illegal straw purchases UH.
Speaker 1: And then a public service announcement component to the program
Speaker 1: to get the word out in the community that it's
Speaker 1: a serious crime to buy a gun for somebody else
Speaker 1: who can't UM and that if you do that, you know,
Speaker 1: you lie on the three UH, that it's a felony.
Speaker 1: You can go to prison for ten years and you
Speaker 1: get a fine of up to a quarter million dollars.
Speaker 1: For those of you that have never filled out that form,
Speaker 1: the question is basically that you're are you the actual yeah,
Speaker 1: and if you're not UM, the actual buyer, it's not
Speaker 1: actually for you. So you're you know, UH, your fell
Speaker 1: and boyfriend gets out of prison and wants, you know,
Speaker 1: and convince his uh, you know, his girlfriend to go
Speaker 1: into a store and buy a handgun for him because
Speaker 1: he's gonna use it to go rob the seven eleven.
Speaker 1: And she says, I'm the actual buyer. That's a crime
Speaker 1: and you can go to prison for that, and so um.
Speaker 1: You know, we've been doing that campaign for a long
Speaker 1: time with a t F as our partner. There's educational
Speaker 1: material for the retailer to to you know, help educate
Speaker 1: their staff want to be on the lookout for what
Speaker 1: kind of questions to ask I mean, and it can
Speaker 1: be very difficult for the the retailer to discern if
Speaker 1: somebody comes in and fills out the form and that
Speaker 1: doesn't go anything that would cause you to be suspicious. Um.
Speaker 1: But again, also we have the public awareness campaign to
Speaker 1: tell the would be strung purchaser long before they were
Speaker 1: walking to the store that you know, don't lie for
Speaker 1: the other guy. You can go to prison. So that's
Speaker 1: another program we've even do it for a long time,
Speaker 1: very successful, you know, the national camp, We've done it
Speaker 1: all over the country. We've distributed the kits, the retailer
Speaker 1: education kits to every retailer in the country free. You
Speaker 1: know you want one, we'll send it, you know. We
Speaker 1: we make it available at the dealer educational summars we
Speaker 1: go on at the shot show and things like that.
Speaker 1: We're also we talked about the Fixed Next campaign. We're
Speaker 1: very proud of that. UM, you know, that's that's been
Speaker 1: great success. We're now partnering with a t F and
Speaker 1: another initiative called Operations Secure Store. So a t F
Speaker 1: came to us a little while back and and and
Speaker 1: identified a troubling trend where burglaries of gun stores were
Speaker 1: on the rise and they were stealing you know, more
Speaker 1: and more guns from these burglaries. Uh, you know, some
Speaker 1: pretty significant increase primarily gang activity. Um, the you know,
Speaker 1: sevent guns that they were stealing, their handguns and those
Speaker 1: guns hit the street and it's not you know, these
Speaker 1: are bad guys. And so we've been working with a
Speaker 1: TF on Operations Secure Store to raise awareness within the
Speaker 1: dealer community. You know that this can happen to you. Um,
Speaker 1: and you know what steps can you take that are
Speaker 1: appropriate for your business to reduce the risk, Like can
Speaker 1: you put the guns away in a gun save? Can
Speaker 1: you put put them in smash resistant display cases. You know,
Speaker 1: have you know closed circuit you know TV monitors and
Speaker 1: cameras and make sure you've got you know, solid locks
Speaker 1: on your doors and things like that. But I mean
Speaker 1: it's it's um. You know. What we see is, you know,
Speaker 1: the bad guys will take a truck, steal a truck
Speaker 1: and drive it right through the front door. Or you
Speaker 1: got bars and gates on the window, or ballard's in front,
Speaker 1: they'll just hook up a chain, put it on it
Speaker 1: and blow it right off. Or they come in from
Speaker 1: they'll breaking to the nail salon or something next door
Speaker 1: and they'll go intrough the wall. They'll just punch through
Speaker 1: the wall or through the roof. I mean all kinds
Speaker 1: of you know ways of getting in there in and
Speaker 1: out a short period of time and steal you know,
Speaker 1: a lot can steal a lot of guns. Fortunately, the
Speaker 1: most recent information that we gotten with a TF is
Speaker 1: that you know, we've bent the curve and the rate
Speaker 1: of these are starting to go down. The number of
Speaker 1: guns stolen starting to go down, and ATF believes that's
Speaker 1: been in part to the cooperative effort to get the
Speaker 1: word out the dealers that they're reacting in a responsible
Speaker 1: way to protect their inventory from being stolen. I mean,
Speaker 1: I really applaud a t F whenever this occurs. They respond,
Speaker 1: even if it's one gun that stolen, they come in force,
Speaker 1: they respond right away, They work with the retailer, you know,
Speaker 1: and they try to recover the guns as quickly as
Speaker 1: they can. And as part of this effort, if at
Speaker 1: F puts out a reward for information and a SECEPH
Speaker 1: will max that reward, so instead of like a five
Speaker 1: thousand dollar reward, it's now ten thousand. And that's a
Speaker 1: check I don't mind writing, you know, um, And we
Speaker 1: do write those checks from time to time. But we
Speaker 1: are happy to do that because it means getting the
Speaker 1: bad guys and we're very happy to see when these
Speaker 1: guys get sentenced. Uh, you know, they really get uh,
Speaker 1: they get hammered. Did you just put them away for
Speaker 1: a long time. As part of that, on the NSSF side,
Speaker 1: we're supporting legislation called the Farms the Federal Farms Licensee
Speaker 1: Protection Act, which would increase the maximum penalty that someone
Speaker 1: could get in prison for stealing guns from a licensee
Speaker 1: from ten years to twenty years and impost mandatory minimums
Speaker 1: for burglaries and robberies. Robberies fortunately are still pretty rare. UM,
Speaker 1: but you know, we've seen homicides of retailers in the
Speaker 1: commission of a robbery. UM, so that's concerning, and we
Speaker 1: worry that, you know, if you're sort of hard in
Speaker 1: the store, then they'll just come in during the daytime
Speaker 1: and come in a robbery. So we're really worried about that.
Speaker 1: Although you would think rapping a gun shop would be
Speaker 1: a special kind of stupid, but it does happen. Uh, fortunately,
Speaker 1: pretty rare. So we're working on that legislation. It's um
Speaker 1: you know, we hope to have it reintroduced in the
Speaker 1: House soon and Centatogram introduced the letter legislation in the
Speaker 1: past and the Senate, and we believe he'll reintroduce it again.
Speaker 1: We're trying to build support for that. We think that's
Speaker 1: a you know, that's not a gun control bill, that's
Speaker 1: a pro law enforcement, pro safety bill. The support of
Speaker 1: all the major law enforcement groups in the country behind that,
Speaker 1: so we're really really proud of that. And the other newer,
Speaker 1: fairly new initiative we've been working on is with the
Speaker 1: American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, which is the largest suicide
Speaker 1: prevention organization in the country, but they actually came to
Speaker 1: us to partner with us to try to help address
Speaker 1: the issue. And I think you probably know about six
Speaker 1: six of gun deaths are suicides, and so that's you know,
Speaker 1: most people don't even hear, like you know X number
Speaker 1: of gun deaths. Two thirds of those are our suicides UM,
Speaker 1: which is a terrible, terrible thing. UH suicides of all
Speaker 1: the fire arm and when a firearm is used commit suicide,
Speaker 1: it's it's lethal and effective about the time. So the
Speaker 1: American Foundation for Suicide Prevention as a goal that we're
Speaker 1: helping them to reach, they want to reduce UM suicides
Speaker 1: by and the only way they can impact that or
Speaker 1: reach that goal is by addressing firearms related suicides because
Speaker 1: of so many of them are committed with are done
Speaker 1: with firearms. So we're working with them to get information
Speaker 1: out to ranges and retailers UM. You know through that
Speaker 1: they have state chapters and we're in our outreach to
Speaker 1: our members and other even non member retails. Give it
Speaker 1: to anybody, you know how you know, what are the
Speaker 1: things you can be on the lookout for. You know,
Speaker 1: what do you do if it happens, and unfortunately ran
Speaker 1: you see it happening at ranges from time to time,
Speaker 1: and it's very troubling for the people who work at
Speaker 1: the range. When this happens. It's very difficult. I mean
Speaker 1: it's um you know, uh most of the time the
Speaker 1: person doesn't you know they're coming where in a sign obviously,
Speaker 1: so it's a challenge, but it encourages people, not you know,
Speaker 1: gun owners, you know, information that goes across the counter
Speaker 1: to the consumer to have that difficult conversation. If you
Speaker 1: see somebody you know, you're close with, a family member
Speaker 1: or friend, do you think is struggling that might be depressed, Um,
Speaker 1: had a death in the family, you know, bad news
Speaker 1: on medical or the lost their job or something like that.
Speaker 1: Are just struggling financially, you know, to reach out to
Speaker 1: offer assistance to you know, trying to point them in
Speaker 1: a direction where they can get help. I mean there's
Speaker 1: lots of suicide prevention hotlines and things like that. So
Speaker 1: just to try to encourage people to have that conversation
Speaker 1: if somebody is struggling, you know, maybe it's somebody in
Speaker 1: your family. You know, if your firearms aren't locked up
Speaker 1: when not in use. You know, maybe you should do that,
Speaker 1: maybe you should take the firearms, offer to take the
Speaker 1: firearms from somebody if they're you know, and a lot
Speaker 1: of times we hear that people say, yeah, just take
Speaker 1: them for me, like because I'm in a you know,
Speaker 1: in a dark place or whatever. So you know, just
Speaker 1: encouraging people to have that conversation, to offer help, try
Speaker 1: to just make sure that firearms are not you know,
Speaker 1: you want to reduce access to lethal means. And that's
Speaker 1: what's really about working with the Veterans Administration and the
Speaker 1: same thing obviously we all know about, you know, returning
Speaker 1: veterans twenty two days commit suicide, again often with firearms.
Speaker 1: So we're working with the Veterans Administration on suicide prevention
Speaker 1: as well. We work with them in the past with
Speaker 1: Child Safe and provided you know, hundreds of thousands of
Speaker 1: Project Child Safe kids to the Veterans Administration that and
Speaker 1: they gave them to returning vets when we were drawing
Speaker 1: down from from Iroq and Afghanistan and big numbers, so
Speaker 1: we're very proud of that. And and you we're continuing
Speaker 1: to work with them on on their new initiative to
Speaker 1: try to help address the suicide issue with veterans, So
Speaker 1: it's you know, kind of teaming up with and we're
Speaker 1: at are UM the shooting at the school in UH,
Speaker 1: Texas in Santa Fe. We work with the Governor's office
Speaker 1: to bring child Safe to the state, and we've actually
Speaker 1: received a million dollar grant or in the process of
Speaker 1: receiving a million dollar grant from the State of Texas
Speaker 1: to run Project Child Safe in the state of Texas
Speaker 1: as part of Governor Abbott's response to that tragedy. So
Speaker 1: we we we do a lot. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: people don't know we do these things. I mean we're
Speaker 1: you know, but we're trying to make sure policymakers understand
Speaker 1: that the industry is proactive pursuing real solutions to make
Speaker 1: for safer communities. I also having a conversation there a
Speaker 1: night about UH suicide and I've lost a very close
Speaker 1: friend and our our our body j recently lost a
Speaker 1: close friend and he was saying that to the annoyance
Speaker 1: of his other friends. Now he's always checking in with
Speaker 1: people and pushing a little bit how you doing, how
Speaker 1: you really doing, because he says now he was so
Speaker 1: blindsided by it UM that he's nervous now of like
Speaker 1: missing missing cues among his friends and colleagues. He said
Speaker 1: it made him like he now lives in this world,
Speaker 1: have been like very aware of where where people are
Speaker 1: around you. Yeah, you hear that, Like people say, I
Speaker 1: never knew, I wish I had asked, I wish I knew. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he wonders if he had missed something, and he doesn't
Speaker 1: want to miss something next time, you know, And look
Speaker 1: a lot of times it's the person that chooses to
Speaker 1: do this. It's their own firearms. So there, you know,
Speaker 1: limitations is what you can do. But you know, if
Speaker 1: you're the you know, uh parent and you've got you know,
Speaker 1: a young adult or a teenager in the house, and
Speaker 1: you know you think that it might be an issue,
Speaker 1: make sure you firearms are secured and not accessible, you know,
Speaker 1: make sure the keys aren't out there or they or
Speaker 1: they don't know the common nation or or even like
Speaker 1: you know, have your body hold the firearms and you know,
Speaker 1: if you think and that's not anti gun, right, we're
Speaker 1: not saying bad guys. We're not saying just be responsible.
Speaker 1: That's person that's like common sense personal storage stuff, I mean,
Speaker 1: like our personal choice. We once we had young kids.
Speaker 1: I don't want to say that I didn't used to
Speaker 1: store guns carelessly because it was things that were in
Speaker 1: my own secure home. We're just grown ups living at
Speaker 1: home in a home. Once we had kids, different story, yeah,
Speaker 1: because they're very like, you know, they're really interested in
Speaker 1: what their dad's interested in, and so we had to
Speaker 1: adopt um for now we have a four year old,
Speaker 1: six year old, eight year old, we had to adopt
Speaker 1: a pretty I don't want to say rigid, but we
Speaker 1: we adopt a system that's twofold, where we do a
Speaker 1: locked cabinet and an in the locked cabinet, we do
Speaker 1: trigger locks. And it's and it took a while to
Speaker 1: train myself to not be lazy now and then, because
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, yeah, you're in a situation where you're
Speaker 1: working on something or cleaning it, and then something comes
Speaker 1: up and you gotta go do something and like force
Speaker 1: yourself to stick to your own system that you have
Speaker 1: put in place when you have young kids around. And
Speaker 1: that's the thing. That's the thing I like about Project
Speaker 1: Child Safe. It's like you're speaking to gun owners but
Speaker 1: in friendly terms and not you're you're coming at them
Speaker 1: from friendly terms and not like condemning what their decisions
Speaker 1: they've made are condemning them as a person. But you're saying, like,
Speaker 1: I understand where you're at. Um, here are some tools
Speaker 1: and practices to achieve what I know, And there's no
Speaker 1: one ice fits all. I mean, if someone has a
Speaker 1: firearm that's for personal protection and they wanted accessible, then
Speaker 1: there are ways you can approach that. You know, um,
Speaker 1: a lockbox, quick access lockbox, coming biometrics now or combinations,
Speaker 1: and that's one approach. But every firearm is capable of
Speaker 1: being secured right one way or another. Just yeah, there's
Speaker 1: plenty of way. There's plenty of ways for families to
Speaker 1: find assistant that works for them. And I think just
Speaker 1: the simple fact that you're aware of the issue and
Speaker 1: thinking about it um is a step in the right direction.
Speaker 1: The great irony recently that we've seen with it with
Speaker 1: I guess flattery is what does that they say about
Speaker 1: you of them? Invitation is the greatest form of flattery.
Speaker 1: What we have seen, it's not really this isn't really
Speaker 1: uh imitation, But what we've seen is UH gun control
Speaker 1: groups like Mom's Demand Action, getting Project Child Safe locks
Speaker 1: from the local police department and then like packaging them
Speaker 1: with their anti gun literature and distributing the house. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and like taking pictures and being proud of it. And
Speaker 1: we've like had to go back to our lawforce partners say,
Speaker 1: you know, that's not really what this is about, right,
Speaker 1: Like we we appreciate that they care about safety. And
Speaker 1: it's pretty ironic because here's a group that's funded by
Speaker 1: a multibillionaire and we say all the time, you know,
Speaker 1: the gun control groups, they don't have any programs, they
Speaker 1: just you know, they don't they don't actually do anything.
Speaker 1: They don't have a gun say, any gun safety initiatives.
Speaker 1: And one of the reasons child safety is I think
Speaker 1: so successful and why this American Foundation for Suicide per
Speaker 1: Inventions approached us is you know, as the industry, we have,
Speaker 1: we have license to talk to gun owners. Right, they'll
Speaker 1: listen to us. Right. Many if if a gun control group,
Speaker 1: you know, hands out a lock, it's gonna you know,
Speaker 1: they don't they don't want to lock on the gun.
Speaker 1: They don't want the gun, right like they say, get
Speaker 1: the gun. There should be guns in the house. But
Speaker 1: so in American Foundation for Suicide Perfences, like you know,
Speaker 1: we need you guts. We need your help to communicate
Speaker 1: the gun owners. How do we communicate the gun owners?
Speaker 1: How do we get this mentions across without offending them
Speaker 1: or turning them off? You know, so that they will
Speaker 1: listen to the message? Uh, you know, and and so
Speaker 1: that's you know why I think that program is successful
Speaker 1: and we'll be successful. Yeah, it's a good one. All right,
Speaker 1: we've taken up a ton of your time. That's all right.
Speaker 1: We have a thing called concluders. Pivot to the conclusion.
Speaker 1: Do you want to conclude, you want to throw it.
Speaker 1: It's not mandatory. You don't need to do a concluder.
Speaker 1: That was a good conversation to spend time with you.
Speaker 1: We got to visit very briefly in New Hampshire at
Speaker 1: that conference, but but that's the first time we've really
Speaker 1: had a chance to have a conversation. So I welcome.
Speaker 1: It's fun. That's your Concluderay, my concluder. Yeah, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: reciprocate with my concluder. And I'm really glad that you
Speaker 1: were able to take time and walk through a lot
Speaker 1: of this stuff. I think we covered a lot of
Speaker 1: things that are probably pretty unfamiliar. Yeah, that's oh, Yeah,
Speaker 1: nobody knows. Nobody knows that a tenth or they know
Speaker 1: a tenth of what you guys do and the other nine.
Speaker 1: There's also the problem to stuff you think you know
Speaker 1: and you realize there's a little more to it. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have a great, great group of people that work
Speaker 1: at the National Shooting Sports Foundation, really passionate about what
Speaker 1: we do and uh dedicated to serving our members. And
Speaker 1: you know, we're really proud of our all these you
Speaker 1: know what we say, real solutions for safer communities, you know,
Speaker 1: and representing the industry UM in state capitals all across
Speaker 1: the country and here in Washington. UM. You know, the
Speaker 1: the challenge never ends. UM. I got one more question though,
Speaker 1: Any chance you guys can move Shot out of Las Vegas?
Speaker 1: Not likely. We're there, UM, you know for for many years.
Speaker 1: We we've got signed contracts going out and as I say,
Speaker 1: we were if we talked about in the year before.
Speaker 1: But next year we'll take space in MGM, and the
Speaker 1: year after that will take space in UM a building
Speaker 1: that Caesar's is putting up. The Caesar's for him will
Speaker 1: go from just under seven hundred thousand square feet to
Speaker 1: just under a million and now I'm sorry it's not
Speaker 1: open to the public. Mark Gotty Concluders. I think probably
Speaker 1: one of the funnest things that you know, I really
Speaker 1: enjoy working here with Like I was explained to you
Speaker 1: kind of before we started talking on the show, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get to I get to talk about hunting and
Speaker 1: guns all day. I mean, this is it's a passion
Speaker 1: of mine. But uh, you know, the fun thing about
Speaker 1: it is is those of us who kind of as
Speaker 1: as I've gotten into this world and I've I've worked
Speaker 1: in it, and I've talked to other people who were
Speaker 1: kind of in this world. Uh, we work all day
Speaker 1: so everyone else gets to go hunt and shoot. So
Speaker 1: so I wish I got to get out and hunt
Speaker 1: and shooting. I really do. I don't know nearly as
Speaker 1: often as I want. So, so you know, for everyone
Speaker 1: who's listening to the podcast, for me, get out and
Speaker 1: hunt shoot, because that's that's what I'm working every day
Speaker 1: for you guys to do. So I want you to
Speaker 1: go out and hunt shoot. If you if you have
Speaker 1: a hunting season and you have something you can go
Speaker 1: out and hunt, go out and hunt it today, you know.
Speaker 1: And if if you can't hunt something today and get
Speaker 1: your gun to go down to the range and get
Speaker 1: better at shooting. So that's pretty because so many guys
Speaker 1: right in about wanting to be like in, you know,
Speaker 1: quote the industry, and I'm like, man, you know a
Speaker 1: lot of people I know that do them the most
Speaker 1: time outside are not in the industry. Yeah, industry, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna industry your way out of the wood. I'm still
Speaker 1: looking for that very rich uncle who's gonna let me
Speaker 1: just hunt and fish all this the number of times
Speaker 1: people have said, oh, you must get to go honey
Speaker 1: all the time, I'm like, actually, no, like hardly ever,
Speaker 1: Johnny Ah. Yeah. I'll just conclude with thank you for
Speaker 1: what you guys do. I appreciate you guys making opportunities
Speaker 1: for me to hunt and fish all the time. So
Speaker 1: um yeah, right now, we love we love to see
Speaker 1: what happens on the show, and we love to what's
Speaker 1: happening on the podcast. So we get to live a
Speaker 1: little vicariously through your adventure. So thanks for sharing with
Speaker 1: the world. Thanks for joining to set