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December 15, 2014

Vol. 15 No. 49

SHOT Show Deadlines Approaching

DEADLINES APPROACHING FOR SHOT SHOW REGISTRATION, EVENTS . . . There are just a few weeks left for everyone planning to attend the 2015 SHOT Show to take advantage of the early-bird pricing which ends Jan. 13. NSSF Member Buyers and Manufacturer Reps utilizing this discount pay $35, and other qualifying non-buyer attendees pay $175. After Jan. 13, registration fees will move to $70 for NSSF Member Buyers and Manufacturer Reps, while all other qualified attendees will incur a registration fee of $350. Anyone interested in becoming an NSSF member must have their application to member services by Jan. 15 for NSSF member pricing to apply towards SHOT Show registration fees. To take advantage of the early-bird registration discount, go to shotshow.org/apply and complete your application.

SHOT Show

• SHOT SHOW UNIVERSITY TICKETS ARE SELLING QUICKLY . . . Don't miss your chance to attend the 2015 SHOT Show University — the premier educational event for retailers. The event will host several informative speakers, including business experts Gene Marks, Larry Mersereau, Tom Shay, Karl Stearns and others. Presentations will focus on improving your cash flow, marketing plan, eCommerce strategy, inventory turns and more. Former ATF Deputy Assistant Directors Wally Nelson and Harry McCabe will be on hand to address every facet of ATF compliance. We've got world-class retailers Miles Hall and Doug VanderWoude discussing ways to drive your business through product promotions. Also, the day wouldn't be complete without lessons on business leadership with Dr. Linda Talley and Marine Pilot Patrick "Lips" Houlahan. SHOT Show University is the one place where you can get a one-day tune-up on your business. Don't miss out — sign up today.

• BOOTH BADGES Q&A . . . With the Dec. 19 deadline for exhibitors to complete submission of booth badge credentials just days away, we've been fielding some common questions about booth personnel and badge requests. To help our exhibitors and their staff with this process, we've compiled this list of frequently asked questions.

• EXHIBITOR DECEMBER DEADLINES . . . The last two weeks of December are hectic for nearly everyone in the firearms industry. Retailers are dealing with fast-paced seasonal sales, distributors are working to fill last-minute orders and meet yearly quotas and all of us are making plans for the month-end holiday visits with family and friends. On top of all of this, SHOT Show preparations are in full swing, so be sure to stay ahead of December deadlines.

Read the SHOT Show Blog for all of the latest SHOT Show news.

Government Relations

• CONGRESS PASSES SPENDING BILL WITH AMMUNITION PROTECTION . . .The U.S. Senate over the weekend on a 56-to-40 bipartisan vote approved the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act for FY15. The U.S. House approved the measure late last week. Though not a perfect bill, NSSF supported it because of an important provision that further prevents the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from banning traditional ammunition made with lead components. The measure also provides ATF with $22 million dollars in additional resources to provide industry members with more efficient customer service. Funding is also included to help improve the NICS background check system by helping states put more mental health and other disqualifying records into the system. Finally, the bill provides $3 million in grant funding for a firearm safety education and gun lock program like Project ChildSafe. NSSF will keep you posted on issues of importance to our industry as the 113th Congress comes to a close.

• OBAMA SURGEON GENERAL NOMINEE VOTE EXPECTED . . . Outgoing U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is expected to move forward this week with a vote on President Obama's nominee for Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murthy. Highly political and avowedly anti-gun, the 36-year-old, Harvard-educated Dr. Murthy espouses the so-called public health approach to furthering gun control. NSSF opposes this nomination. Read NSSF Senior Vice President and General Counsel Larry Keane's blog post.

• OHIO ASSEMBLY APPROVES USE OF SUPPRESSORS FOR HUNTING . . . Both houses of the Ohio General Assembly last week approved a bill that will allow hunters to use lawfully possessed firearm suppressors for hunting. If signed into law by Gov. John Kasich, Ohio would become the 34th state to allow suppressors to be used for the hunting of all game animals. NSSF supports efforts to remove restrictions on the use of suppressors for hunting and at shooting ranges. A number of other pro-gun provisions were added to the legislation, including allowing long gun purchases in non-contiguous states; requiring sheriffs to use the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) in processing concealed handgun license applications; recognition of all states' concealed carry permits; requiring the chief law enforcement officer (CLEO) to process federal forms for NFA items just as they would for a CHL applicant. See the NSSF fact sheet on suppressors.

For more Government Relations news, read NSSF's latest Government Relations Update.

Legal

• SANDY HOOK FAMILIES LAUNCH LAWSUIT, NSSF RESPONDS . . . The families of some of those killed and one teacher who was wounded two years ago at the Sandy Hook Elementary School are suing the manufacturer, distributor and retailer of the legally sold rifle used in the shooting. The negligence and wrongful death lawsuit, filed in Bridgeport Superior Court and released today, asserts that the Bushmaster AR-15 rifle should not have been publicly available because it was designed for military use and is unsuited for hunting or home defense. NSSF responds as follows: "The U.S. Congress with overwhelming bipartisan support passed the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Firearms Act in 2005 in order to prevent lawsuits that seek to blame manufacturers for the criminal misuse of products that were lawfully sold. Like all Americans, we have great sympathy for the families represented in this suit. This tragedy was caused by the criminal actions of a mentally unstable individual. The suit lacks factual and legal merit."

• NSSF ATTENDS ORAL ARGUMENTS IN CONN., N.Y. GUN LAW CHALLENGES . . . NSSF attended oral arguments held last week before the Second Circuit Court of Appeals in Shew v. Malloy and NYSRPA v. Cuomo — the two closely watched cases challenging the sweeping gun and ammunition magazine bans passed by Connecticut and New York in 2013. NSSF filed friend of the court briefs in both cases, arguing that New York's SAFE Act and Connecticut's SB 1160 are unconstitutionally vague and that the semi-automatic firearms and magazines banned are commonly owned by millions of law-abiding gun owners and widely used for lawful purposes. Attorneys representing the states argued neither state's gun control measure implicated "core" Second Amendment rights recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in the Heller decision. Gun rights advocates countered the governments' interpretations and discredited the states' expert witness who failed to show how either ban would prevent future violence. NSSF expects the Second Circuit to issue opinions in the next several weeks.

Project ChildSafe

• HELP GIVE THE GIFT OF SAFETY THIS HOLIDAY SEASON . . . Safe storage is the number one way to help reduce firearms accidents and unauthorized access. Every day, Project ChildSafe receives requests for thousands of gun locks from law enforcement agencies across the country, but we can only fulfill a fraction of those requests with available funding. Your donation, which may be tax deductible, can help Project ChildSafe promote firearms safety education nationwide and help keep guns from falling into the wrong hands.

SHOT Business

• SHOT BUSINESS GARNERS PRESTIGIOUS MAGAZINE AWARD . . . The NSSF is pleased to announce that its flagship print publication for the industry, SHOT Business, has been awarded a prestigious Folio Eddie (short for "Editorial Excellence") Award, in celebration of great magazine journalism. Each year, Folio judges evaluate more than 2,000 entries from consumer, business-to-business, custom and association publications. SHOT Business won its category—Business-to-Business, Full Issue, General Interest/Enthusiast—for the August/September 2013 issue. This is the second time SHOT Business has been recognized as Best in Class in its category. "It's an honor to receive this award on behalf of Bonnier and the National Shooting Sports Foundation," said SHOT Business Editor Slaton L. White. "We work hard to produce a superior product and it's gratifying to see our peers in the magazine industry recognize just what a great magazine it is."

Research

• USITC FIREARMS AND AMMUNITION DATA FOR OCTOBER 2014 . . . NSSF tracks and reports monthly U.S. import and export units for several sporting arms, ammunition and optics categories from the U.S. International Trade Commission. See a complete breakdown of each category's September import and export data. NSSF members can access additional historical import and export data by logging in and clicking NSSF Industry Research.

• SURVEY SHOWS GROWING PUBLIC SUPPORT FOR GUN RIGHTS . . . For the first time in more than two decades of Pew Research Center surveys, there is more support for gun rights than gun control. Currently, 52 percent say it is more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns, while 46 percent say it is more important to control gun ownership. Over the past two years, blacks' views on this measure have changed dramatically. Currently, 54 percent of blacks say gun ownership does more to protect people than endanger personal safety, nearly double the percentage saying this in December 2012 (29 percent). Read more from Pew Research Center.

Members

• DID YOU KNOW? . . . New NSSF Voting and Supporting members receive five extra exhibitor booth points for SHOT Show upon becoming a member and can save big on booth space with special member discounts. Exhibitors with more booth points receive higher precedency towards their choice of booth location. Learn more about this benefit and SHOT Show Exhibitor booth points.
  

Retailers

• ATF Q&A . . . The great compliance questions keep coming in from our Members. Here are just two of the many we received last week. The first question relates to renting a handgun to a juvenile and whether or not chaining the handgun to the premises would make it legal to rent the handgun. The second question relates to an FFL selling firearms as a private individual at a private gun show. Click on the link to find the answers. Remember that the NSSF Compliance Hotline is provided solely for our members and is just one of the many great benefits NSSF Membership offers. View more information about joining NSSF at nssf.org/join.
  

News of Note

• TODAY IS THE 223^rd ANNIVERSARY OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS . . . On Dec. 15, 1791, James Madison created the Bill of Rights that lists specific prohibitions on governmental power. Today we celebrate our right to keep and bear arms as it marks the 223rd anniversary of the 2nd Amendment ("A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.") Refresh your knowledge of the Bill of Rights and your rights as an American.

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• ONLINE FIREARM SALES AND COMPLIANCE . . . With the holidays fast approaching and the present-day shopping shift from in-store to on-line shopping, we thought it was a good time to discuss some of the important compliance factors to remember when buying firearms online. Purchasing a firearm online through one of the various firearm auction sites such as GunBroker.com or GunsAmerica.com, a firearms forum, or even ordering a custom gun from a small manufacturer or gunsmith with a website is little different than having a dealer special order a firearm from a distributor. The Gun Control Act of 1968 includes a provision that each licensed manufacturer, importer and dealer must maintain records of sales or other disposition of firearms, and through it Congress gave the Attorney General the authority to prescribe the regulations to carry out the statute, including the paperwork and associated retention period. ATF Form 4473 is the paperwork that must be completed each time a firearm is transferred. It is published on the ATF website, along with instructions. Read more here. Orchid Advisors is an endorsed compliance information provider for NSSF members.

Jobs

• FIREARMS INDUSTRY JOBS . . . Visit nssf.org/jobs for current employment opportunities in the shooting, hunting and outdoor industry. Employers: Log in to post a job opening.

NSSF's Mission "To promote, protect and preserve hunting and the shooting sports. " Click here to visit the NSSF website and see how we accomplish this mission.

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