9781422273500

By David Wilson

MASON CREST PH I L ADELPH I A | MI AMI

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Foreword .................................................................................... 6 Chapter 1: Manufacturers ..................................................... 11 Chapter 2: Retailers ............................................................... 27 Chapter 3: Gun Shows . .......................................................... 43 Chapter 4: The Internet ......................................................... 59 Chapter 5: Stopping Illegal Sales ......................................... 73 Series Glossary of Key Terms ................................................. 88 Further Reading & Internet Resources ................................. 92 Index . ........................................................................................ 94 Author’s Biography ................................................................. 96 Credits . ..................................................................................... 96 K E Y I C O N S T O L O O K F O R Words to Understand: These words, with their easy-to-understand definitions, will increase readers’ understanding of the text while building vocabulary skills. Sidebars: This boxed material within the main text allows readers to build knowledge, gain insights, explore possibilities, and broaden their perspectives by weaving together additional information to provide realistic and holistic perspectives. Educational Videos: Readers can view videos by scanning our QR codes, providing them with additional educational content to supplement the text. Text-Dependent Questions: These questions send the reader back to the text for more careful attention to the evidence presented there. Research Projects: Readers are pointed toward areas of further inquiry connected to each chapter. Suggestions are provided for projects that encourage deeper research and analysis. Series Glossary of Key Terms: This back-of-the-book glossary contains terminology used throughout this series. Words found here increase the reader’s ability to read and comprehend higher-level books and articles in this field.

It was an honor to be asked to write the foreword for the Gun Country series. Since I’m not a celebrity, and it is unlikely you have ever heard of me, I’d like to tell you a bit about my background and experience as it applies to guns. I am a security, emergency management, and business continuity consultant helping public and private sector organizations to be better prepared to withstand disasters. I help them draft plans, provide training, and conduct exercises to improve their organizations’ preparedness posture. In short, I coach organizations on how to ready their people to handle crises. My career began as a Marine infantryman, armorer, and counterintelligence specialist. I then became a police officer, serving as a SWAT officer, firearms instructor, hostage negotiator, and neighborhood team leader. I’ve worked for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security as an intelligence officer and protective security advisor. I’ve been the chief instructor at a private shooting club. Mixed in there were a few years as a volunteer firefighter and EMT. My knowledge of guns is fairly extensive. I know quite a bit about numerous makes and models of guns, including rifles, pistols, and shotguns. I’ve fired many types and styles of guns from .22 caliber pistols (very small) to 155-millimeter howitzers (so big they need to be towed by a truck). I have a great deal of experience in “use of force,” which is the legal term for the appropriate times and conditions when different types of force can be used by civilians, the military, and law enforcement. I’ve seen close-up what guns can do to a human body. But I am getting ahead of myself. I am what some would consider a late bloomer when it comes to shooting and guns. My

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shooting experience started when I was eighteen at U.S. Marine Corps boot camp at Parris Island, South Carolina. Prior to that, the only guns I knew were toys and BB guns. You may have heard it is important to make a good first impression; well, the rifle ranges of Parris Island certainly made a good first impression on me. Boot camp takes about three months. The first month was filled with screaming drill instructors, summer humidity and heat, and what seemed like endless push-ups. Very disorienting and uncomfortable. As the second month of boot camp began, our company marched out to the rifle ranges and the change in atmosphere was remarkable. We began our march at the industrial Mainside part of the base and ended at the pastoral grounds of the ranges. Where Mainside was mostly paved and sandy, the ranges had huge fields of green grass. Where Mainside had quite a bit of traffic and other mechanical noise from steam plants and the like, the ranges were quiet with the sound of birds and the wind blowing through the trees punctuated by the pleasant sound of the crack of rifle fire as Marines practiced their craft. The difference was amazing. That initial experience set a high standard for the rest of my life. The training I received there was exceptional; few would argue the Marines create excellent shooters. Over the next fifteen years I would experience a wide variety of firearms as I became an expert in their operation and maintenance and learned how to employ them to inflict the least damage while accomplishing a mission or in the line of duty. I would not consider myself a “gun nut” or even an enthusiast. I don’t own very many. I don’t get emotional when I’m around them. I look at them as tools, much like a carpenter looks at a hammer. I’m comfortable around them because I know what they can and cannot do. My position on guns is that of a pragmatic advocate. The appropriate gun in the hands of a well-trained person can result

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in the pursuit of a lifelong and engaging sport. It can also be a potent solution to a desperate problem and a powerful deterrent. I believe guns alone are not dangerous. As with many controversial topics, the disagreements often arise from a lack of knowledge and experience coupled with our natural tendency to generalize and oversimplify complex problems. We are better served when we gather information from varied sources and break down the problems into manageable issues. I’m not asking you to agree with me. Based on what I know and what I’ve done, this is how I feel. I will continue to read thoughtful material and talk to people who make a conscientious effort to understand the issues. That’s one of the reasons I appreciate this series as it does a very good job exploring some of the most contentious issues such as assault weapons, the gun economy, and Second Amendment rights. Clients frequently ask me to help them address the threat of an active assailant, commonly referred to as an “active shooter.” The active shooter scenario encompasses so many of the issues surrounding guns. Mental health, gun ownership, concealed carry, and law enforcement response are all part of the conversation although some of my clients seem unaware of the connections. I wish I’d been able to refer them to the Gun Country series to fill some of their knowledge gaps. By reading this foreword and having the series in front of you, you are already ahead of the game. You are on your way to forming your own thoughtful opinion on the topic of guns and the surrounding issues. I admire the good work author David Wilson has done presenting a complicated topic in a fair and straightforward manner. I encourage you to take the time to carefully consume this series regardless of your current position on the topic. Do the activities, follow the video links, and answer the questions at the end of the chapters. Keep an open mind and turn up your critical

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thinking. Ask yourself difficult questions and then actively pursue the answers. By doing these small additional tasks, you will come away with a very good base of knowledge on a complicated subject. If you still have questions, use the information and knowledge from the Gun Country series to drive further research. If you have not already done so, consider visiting a gun show, take a marksmanship class and shoot a pistol if you never have, and talk with law enforcement to gain their perspective. You should also consider talking with emergency room doctors and nurses, teachers, and school administrators for their perspectives as well. To think is not to know. To experience is to know. Use this series as the basis for your experience.

Jeff Murray, MA ASIS Certified Protection Professional Certified Firearms Instructor

Foreword

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The gun industry in the United States is estimated to have an annual economic impact of $50 billion.

WORDS TO UNDERSTAND

ersatz: A low-quality reproduction, inferior substitute, counterfeit. logistics: The process of ordering and acquiring supplies. market share: A business term referring to the percentage of total available customers who choose to purchase a given brand. prevalent: Popular, widespread, extensive. tariff: An economic tax applied to imported goods by governments, meant to bolster the performance of domestic industries and manufacturers.

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Manufacturers

The right to buy weapons is the right to be free.

—A.E. van Vogt, author

America’s gun business combines two of the country’s most well-known institutions: capitalism and firearms. Unlike murky statistics on gun violence, statistics about gun sales are far more prevalent . Each year, the manufacture, distribution, sale, and resale of firearms and ammunition has an estimated economic impact of some $50 billion, providing over 300,000 Americans with work, generating $15 billion worth of wages, and providing the government with some $6 billion in taxes. Building a Better Gun The majority of gun manufacturers in the United States are not publicly held corporations with a legal duty to report manufacturing and sales information. Nevertheless, most gun companies have one thing in common: age. Many American gun manufacturers trace their history back to the 1800s. Remington

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America’s gun business combines two of the country’s most well-known institutions: capitalism and firearms.

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Arms leads the pack, since its genesis as a company dates all the way back to 1816, when company founder Eliphalet Remington II entered a shooting competition with a homemade rifle and performed so well that his tournament competitors all placed orders for a gun. Most of the major manufacturers started operations after the two world wars, suggesting that firearm market share in the United States depends heavily on getting to your customer base first.

Gun manufacturers like Eli Whitney enjoyed the patronage of George Washington.

Chapter 1: Manufacturers

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This long history of manufacturing means that the relationship between the arms industry and the American government is not new, despite the rapid growth of the gun control debate in recent decades. Gun manufacturers like Eli Whitney (better remembered for the invention of the cotton gin) and Simeon North enjoyed the patronage of George Washington, who wanted to grow an American arms industry after spending much of the American Revolution needing to purchase foreign weapons to meet the war’s logistics needs. The government nurtured the growth of gun manufacturing not only through contracts and start-up funding, but also through tariffs against foreign competition and even patent laws meant to safeguard manufacturers from having their designs stolen by rivals. By the 1850s, not only was the United States a major world producer of firearms, but manufacturers had introduced a revolutionary system of interchangeable parts so that any gun could provide spare parts for another. Smith & Wesson popularized not only the revolver handgun (despite having been founded five years prior to the invention of the revolver itself), but also the metal cartridge ammunition that would quickly replace the ball ammunition used in both the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. While Smith & Wesson enjoyed almost 150 years in the limelight of American gun manufacturing, its position at the top has been overtaken just recently—and by a much younger company.

Sturm, Ruger & Co.: The Current Sales Leader

Like many gun manufacturers, the history of Sturm, Ruger & Co. begins in a time of war. Cofounder William Ruger acquired a “Nambu” pistol used by the Japanese in World War II and successfully built a working duplicate of the gun. His partner, Alexander Sturm, fronted the $50,000 that the company needed

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