NSSF Announces 2016 Scholarship Winners

To: ALL MEDIA
For immediate release

July 5, 2016

For more information contact:

Bill Brassard
203-426-1320

NSSF Announces 2016 Scholarship Winners

NEWTOWN, Conn. — The National Shooting Sports Foundation® (NSSF®), the trade association for the firearms industry, is pleased to announce that it has chosen the winners of its 2016 Scholarship Essay Contest. Open to the children of NSSF’s Voting Member company employees, the annual contest awards $60,000 divided between 25 winners, including one grand prize winner who receives $8,000 toward their college costs.

This year’s contest received its largest turnout to date, with more than 100 entrants submitting essays that addressed a choice of topics related to Second Amendment rights, hunting and sport shooting. Entries were judged not just on how well they addressed their chosen subject matter, but also on the entrant’s success in following the rules for submission and proper use of grammar and syntax. This year’s topics included:

• How do I handle peer pressure at school from people who don’t share my passion for firearms and recreational shooting?
• Should firearms manufacturers, distributors and dealers be legally responsible for the criminal misuse of firearms and ammunition products?
• How do I get my friends and relatives who enjoy the shooting sports to vote in this important election year?

This year’s grand prize winner is Alexandra Fortuna, whose mother is employed by Sturm, Ruger & Co. Alexandra will be a sophomore at Norwalk Community College this coming Fall, and she chose to address the topic of liability by manufactures, distributors and retailers when criminals misuse their products, tackling the subject with this scenario:

One night, a woman is peacefully sleeping in her home. A man enters through her bedroom window with the intent to commit a crime. The woman wakes, sees the stranger and screams. The man grabs the bottle of wine on the table next to her bed. He smashes it on the end of the table and stabs the woman with the broken end of the bottle. The injured woman files a lawsuit against the maker of the wine alleging they should have known that upon breaking the bottle, someone could cause serious and deadly injury with the broken edges.

Same scenario. A woman is sleeping in her house and a man breaks in with the intent of committing a crime. She wakes up and screams and he grabs the gun she has on her bedside. He shoots her with the gun and she is seriously injured.

The woman sues the wine manufacturer and the firearms manufacturer, even though both products were initially doing the job for which they were intended. But what is the likelihood of success for a suit against the wine maker?

Other winners included $5,000 first place entrant Julia Bibko, who will be a senior at SUNY in Brockport this coming year and whose father works for Olin Corp., and $3,000 second place winner Emilee Flaugher, who will be a junior at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and whose mother works for Olin/Winchester. Twenty-two other winners received $2,000 for their successful entries. See the full list of winning entrants and the grand prize-winning essay here.

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About NSSF
The National Shooting Sports Foundation is the trade association for the firearms industry. Its mission is to promote, protect and preserve hunting and the shooting sports. Formed in 1961, NSSF has a membership of more than 13,000 manufacturers, distributors, firearms retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen’s organizations and publishers. For more information, visit www.nssf.org.