For years, America’s most iconic gun-makers turned over sensitive personal information on hundreds of thousands of customers to political operatives.
Those operatives, in turn, secretly employed the details to rally firearm owners to elect pro-gun politicians running for Congress and the White House, a ProPublica investigation has found.
The clandestine sharing of gun buyers’ identities — without their knowledge and consent — marked a significant departure for an industry that has long prided itself on thwarting efforts to track who owns firearms in America.
At least 10 gun industry businesses, including Glock, Smith & Wesson, Remington, Marlin and Mossberg, handed over names, addresses and other private data to the gun industry’s chief lobbying group, the National Shooting Sports Foundation. The NSSF then entered the gun owners’ details into what would become a massive database.
This is why i cant take republicans seriously when they argue against firearm licenses. There already is a gun registry, they made it themselves.
One argument against gun registration was that it would let nefarious forces quickly identify gunowners
I am shocked that a gun company would do anything amoral.
I think you mean immoral. Amoral is not related to morals, like choosing what color socks to wear at home.
I’m sorry to say your thought is incorrect. I was using this definition: amoral - having no moral standards, restraints, or principles; unaware of or indifferent to questions of right or wrong.
To expand on this, I was implying that morality is simply not a factor in their actions.
That’s the definition I’m going off of as well!
It is pretty ironic the entire time the gun industry was fueling paranoia about the government creating a database of all the gun owners they themselves were secretly creating a database of all the gun owners.
And it was from people sending in warranty cards. They put themselves on the list of gun owners they were terrified of existing.
Projection as deflection? Well I never.
Why did the gun manufacturers get the owners’ names? Usually the manufacturers sell to dealers and the dealers sell to users, I had thought.
Believe it or not, the article answers that question
Aha, OP might have included that in the article excerpt:
The data initially came from decades of warranty cards filled out by customers and returned to gun manufacturers for rebates and repair or replacement programs. A ProPublica review of dozens of warranty cards from the 1970s through today found that some promised customers their information would be kept strictly confidential. Others said some information could be shared with third parties for marketing and sales. None of the cards informed buyers their details would be used by lobbyists and consultants to win elections.
Do you think there might be some sort of corruption in the gun trade?
Is that even possible?
If the retailers are leaking the info, they should be mentioned too, of course.
The real answer is probably just customers doing warranty claims/registration.
It literally says that’s exactly what it is in the article
I thought guns were supposed to keep you safe.
