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August 23, 2011

NSSF Submits LTE to Chicago Sun-Times on Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy


Chicago Sun-Times
350 N. Orleans St., 10th Floor
Chicago, IL 60654

To the Editor:
Just two months ago, Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy stood before a congregation of church goers and attacked America’s firearms industry declaring, “We’ve got to get the gun debate back to center, and it’s got to come with the recognition of who’s paying the price for the gun manufacturers being rich and living in gated communities.” Earlier this week, McCarthy renewed his call for the debate on Second Amendment rights to come back to center (“Police chief Garry McCarthy sees progress in first 100 days,” August. 22, 2011). Unfortunately, McCarthy’s comments do little to advance his professed desire and sound more like a politician pandering for a vote than a serious law enforcement official seeking a constructive and meaningful policy dialogue.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for America’s firearms industry, has for more than a decade partnered with ATF in a national campaign to make the public aware that it is a serious crime to “straw purchase” a firearm. The industry-funded program, called “Don’t Lie for the Other Guy,” also helps ATF educate firearms retailers to better detect and prevent illegal straw purchases. Just two years ago this program was launched in Chicago. As part of that launch, hundreds of billboards, posters, transit shelter signs, taxi signs, train signs, bridge bulletins, bus signs and radio public service announcements flooded the Windy City. We recently learned that Don’t Lie for the Other Guy signs are still up in Chicagoland. Now that’s cooperation.

Lawrence G. Keane
Senior Vice President and General Counsel
National Shooting Sports Foundation

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