NSSF: Aiming for Accuracy

At Burlington Free Press, an Apology and an Op-ed

The Burlington Free Press today ran a letter of apology in its print edition after publishing a reader's letter yesterday that said, "I suggest that before the next annual [moose] killing season, other residents be awarded legal permits to kill hunters . . . ." 

The wording of the print edition apology was similar to that which appeared yesterday online. Here's the print version:

Moose-hunting letter inappropriate

Editor's note: The letters to the editor in Wednesday's editions and on the Free Press Web site included a letter about the annual moose hunt. The letter clearly violates the standards of the Free Press for submissions to the Opinion page by advocating for violence against hunters. The letter in no way reflects the views of this paper. We apologize for publishing the letter.

We were pleased to see that Wayne LaRoche, commissioner of the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, provided an op-ed column explaining the value and culture of hunting, as we urged yesterday. Here is what Mr. LaRoche had to say about hunting and the state's moose population:

"Vermont has an abundant moose population. In fact, the moose population in the northeastern part of the state has increased to a level that has damaged their forest habitat and caused losses to forest landowners. The Department of Fish and Wildlife and its biologists carefully manage the moose and other wildlife populations using highly regulated hunting to sustain the healthy and abundant populations so that they do not destroy their own habitat or cause serious losses to landowners. Through time, hunting benefits the moose, the forest landowners, hunters and those of us who enjoy viewing moose."

The mistake of printing the letter having been made, we appreciate the quick response from the newspaper to correct it and applaud Mr. LaRoche for taking advantage of the opportunity to help educate readers about the role hunting plays in wildlife conservation.

A New Magazine for AR Enthusiasts

A new digital magazine, "AR Guns and Hunting," has launched. Content includes tips, history and discussions about equipment related AR rifles. The magazine, published by Grand View Media Group, is an indicator of the increasing popularity among hunters for AR-platform rifles. The launch coincides with NSSF's national campaign to educate sportsmen about the "modern sporting rifle."

Read Ralph M. Lermayer's editor's letter: http://www.arshunt.com/arshunt/200910#pg5

Read the magazine: http://www.arshunt.com/arshunt/200910

More Women Learning About Concealed Carry

With his story "Women Aim for Protection in Female-only Concealed Pistol Classes," Howard Meyerson of the Grand Rapids Press illustrates the growing interest among women in taking classes designed to teach safe and responsible handgun ownership. It's a trend that also can be seen in NSSF's First Shots program, where a recent study of program participants revealed that 74 percent of women who enrolled in First Shots classes were motivated by an interest in personal protection.

Watch the video, too, that accompanies Mr. Meyerson's story. The seminar he writes about was sponsored by the Great Lakes Outdoors Foundation.

Working to Prevent The Illegal Purchase of Guns

The video below gives a good overview of the Don't Lie for the Other Guy straw-purchase deterrent program.

Today in San Diego, the firearms industry, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives will join forces to launch Don't Lie for the Other Guy. The goal of the program is twofold: to warn residents and visitors about the severe penalties associated with illegally purchasing a firearm, and to educate federally licensed firearms retailers on how to better detect and deter potential straw purchasers.

Straw purchasers are individuals able to pass the criminal background check required by federal law before the retail purchase of any firearm. However, these people are not the actual buyers of the firearm; instead, they use their good name to commit the crime of providing a gun to a person prohibited by law from possessing a one. The program's key  message is: Buy a gun for someone who can't and buy yourself 10 years in jail.

Over the past year, the Don't Lie program has been rolled out in Texas cities along Rio Grande, plus Houston, San Antonio and Tucson. The program was jointly developed by ATF and the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

Majority of Americans Against Gun Control

New Rasmussen and Gallup reports reveal that more Americans oppose stricter gun control laws.

"Just 39 percent of Americans now say the United States needs stricter gun control," according to Rasmussen Reports, which released its poll results last Monday. Rasmussen reported that "50 percent are opposed to stricter gun control laws, and 11% are not sure."

Last March, 43 percent favored stricter gun control laws, according to Rasmussen.

The report comes in advance of the Supreme Court agreeing to hear the McDonald v. Chicago case that will determine if the Second Amendment trumps state and local anti-gun laws. The case is sponsored by the Second Amendment Foundation and the Illinois State Rifle Association on behalf of several Chicago residents.

According to Rasmussen, "Only 20% of adults believe city governments have the right to prevent citizens from owning handguns.

Sixty-nine percent (69%) disagree and say city governments do not have that right. Eleven percent (11%) are undecided.

Eighty-seven percent (87%) of Republicans, 52% of Democrats and 72% of unaffiliateds say cities do not have the right to ban handgun ownership."

The Gallup poll, released today, confirms the trend, finding "a new low of 44 percent of Americans saying the laws covering firearm sales should be made more strict. That is down 5 points in the last year and 34 points from the high of 78 percent recorded the first time the question was asked, in 1990."

Firearms Accidents Not a Major Factor in Health Care Costs

With some media stories about health care making reference to guns as a reason for rising costs, the National Shooting Sports Foundation reminds reporters and editors that fatal firearms accidents are at all-time lows and now represent less than 1 percent (actually 0.7 percent) of all accidental fatalities in the country.

Declines in accidents involving children have been steep. Between 1996 and 2006, accidental fatalities for children 14 years of age and under decreased by 61 percent, and by 77 percent going back to 1986, according to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control.

In a side-by-side comparison with other forms of unintentional fatalities, firearms rank far down on the list, well below motor vehicles, poisoning, falls, choking, drowning and fires.

These successes have come about through the promotion of the safe use and storage of firearms through voluntary measures, including programs such as Project ChildSafe and the practice of including appropriate gun-locking devices and safety literature with new firearms. These voluntary, firearms industry programs, along with ongoing firearms and hunter safety education efforts, are helping to continue the trend toward increased firearms safety and decreased firearms accidents.

Hunting with ARs--The New Paradigm

Ed Rasimus on his Thunder Tales blog draws attention to the rising popularly of hunting with AR-15-platform rifles. He calls it "The New Paradigm."

We agree. See NSSF's recently launched educational campaign on Modern Sporting Rifles, and pass on the fact card and the video on the campaign's Web site. A four-page insert runs in major sporting magazines such as Field and Stream, Outdoor Life and Petersen's Hunting this month and next.

Thanks to Say Uncle for the reference to Ed's blog post.

New NSSF Long-form AR-15 Educational Video

The National Shooting Sports Foundation's educational campaign on modern sporting rifles has added a new long-form video (long for the Web anyway, five minutes) to accompany its 30- and 60-second messages. The campaign is designed to reach a wide audience in the hunting and target shooting community, with emphasis placed on educating sportsmen whose preference for traditional-looking firearms can lead them to misunderstand AR-15-platform rifles and to even describe them as "assault weapons," which inadvertently lends support to elected officials and organizations who want to ban these rifles.

Some hunters or target shooters may not care to use AR-15-platform rifles. That's OK; we all have our preferences for certain firearms and the right to own the guns we choose. What's damaging to all gun owners, however, is when sportsmen label ARs as "evil" or "bad" guns because they look different from traditional rifles. In doing so they assist gun-ban initiatives that could affect the rights of others to own the type of firearm they prefer--AR-platform rifles--which are favored by younger hunters and shooters, precisely the group on which the future of those activities rests. Traditionalists should be aware that legislation that could ban AR-15-type rifles could sweep up traditional-looking semi-automatic rifles and shotguns (and even handguns) in its net.  

The campaign's four-page educational insert on the modern sporting rifle, which tracks how military rifles of a certain era became popular civilian sporting rifles, will hit in sporting magazines ranging from Field & Stream and Outdoor Life to Petersen's Hunting and Gun Dog, among others. The point is that today's modern sporting rifle is just another step in the long history of the military-to-civilian sporting rifle evolution.

For this campaign to have a widespread effect on changing attitudes toward AR-15-platform rifles and to clear up misunderstanding about them (for example, their operation is semi-automatic, not full automatic, with only one round fired with each pull of the trigger), the campaign needs advocates who are willing to correct individuals—your friends, reporters, elected officials—who are misinformed about these rifles. A helpful pocket fact card available at www.nssf.org/msr can assist that effort. Consider sending the fact card to your local, state and Congressional representatives. 

As NSSF President Steve Sanetti has said, "We ask everyone who values their gun ownership rights to correct misunderstandings about the use and operation of these modern sporting rifles. If we let misinformation go unchecked, we only assist those who would ban ownership of these and other types of semi-automatic firearms, like your duck-hunting shotgun. We can't let that happen."

Expanding Our View at the Gun Blogger Rendezvous

It's easy to get tunnel vision by reading only familiar magazines, newsletters and blogs, watching only the best-known television shows and frequenting only the most-visited Web sites. We were reminded of that after attending the fourth Gun Blogger Rendezvous (GBR-IV), where we met bloggers of different voices and enthusiasms and where our experience has indeed expanded our view.

The bloggers we met in Reno--from an 11-year-old champion pistol shooter to a 78-year-old grandmother who took up handgun shooting a year ago, and a lot of bloggers in between those ages and interests--have dedicated followers in the worlds of competition shooting, Second Amendment activism, gunsmithing and personal protection. One of them was Phil, who does not blog about firearms but regularly comments on various gun blogs and who made the trip all the way from Oxford, England, to be at GBR-IV. Say Uncle, a veteran blogger with a big audience, was among the bloggers in attendance.

It was Mike Gallion, a Steel Challenge competitor and author of The Mr. Completely blog, who reached out to NSSF, and we're pleased he did. NSSF provided dinner one evening and shared presentation time at the conference with the National Rifle Association and Alan Gura, the attorney who won the District of Columbia v. Heller case. In its presentation, NSSF emphasized how it can be a resource to all bloggers by providing research and statistics, and how potential content can be found in NSSF’s Bullet Points weekly newsletter, legislative alerts on federal and state firearms issues, and on this blog. Additionally, we provided an overview of NSSF high-priority issues, such as the AR-15/Modern Sporting Rifle education campaign that is about to launch (stay tuned for more on that).

And we listened. In freewheeling discussion (bloggers like to give their opinions), we received good suggestions about how to increase the effectiveness of this blog, and we will be acting on some of those suggestions.

Days were spent at the Washoe County Shooting Facility, where there was no lack of equipment to shoot and where a lot of photos and video were captured that are now on blog sites. On Saturday evening we listened to compelling keynote speaker Captain Charles "Chuck" Ziegenfuss, who suffered serious injuries in a roadside bomb blast in Iraq and who today champions Project Valour-IT, a project of Soldiers Angels. Project Valour-IT provides laptops and voice-recognition software to wounded vets so they can continue blogging and sending e-mail even though they may be temporarily or permanently unable to use a keyboard.

NSSF has made a donation to Project Valour-IT, which has provided 3,000 laptops to date to wounded soldiers. After watching Captain Chuck give a demonstration of the voice-recognition software and the benefits it provides to wounded veterans, we encourage readers to visit the Project Valour-IT Web site to add their support for this worthy program.

Industry that was represented either in person or by providing product or service support included  Brownell's, Crimson Trace, Para Ordnance, Hi-Point, Glock, Dillon Precision, Front Sight Training Academy, Hi-Cap Gun Works, Lucky Gunner, Cowboy Fast Draw Association, Western Nevada Pistol League, Steel Challenge Shooting Association (USPSA/SCSA) and Springfield Arms.

The gun blogger community is large, passionate, independent-minded, opinionated and influential. There are many who have felt its sting on occasion, including NSSF, but we also recognize its ability to drive messages that help educate and ultimately unite firearm owners. We’re learning.

We refer you to the Mr. Completely blog for a list of gun bloggers (not all who are listed there attended GBR-IV but many did) and to Derek at The Packing Rat for photographs.

Report: New Women Shooters Say They're Interested in Personal Protection

From NSSF's weekly e-newsletter Bullet Points:

The National Shooting Sports Foundation's First Shots program has helped introduce thousands of first-timers to shooting at their local ranges. Nearly half of these participants have been female. A new report from NSSF shows a snapshot of these new women shooters. For example, after attending a First Shots seminar at their local range, 47 percent of women have met their local requirements to purchase a handgun, 26 percent said they have already purchased a handgun and 58 percent said they are planning to purchase a handgun in the future. When asked what their primary reason for purchasing a handgun would be, 86 percent said personal protection.

Read the rest of the Bullet Points e-newsletter.

Bullet Points is sent free of charge to subscribers each Monday and provides a roundup of news related to the firearms industry, the shooting sports and Second Amendment. To receive Bullet Points weekly subscribe here.