One of Australia’s biggest gun clubs is closely connected to the major gun group in the Unites States called the National Rifle Association of America, or NRA. In the statement below an ex-employee of the NRA speaks about his experiences with the American gun industry and NRA. All Australians should be aware of these troubling accusations.

Statement of Robert A. Ricker

April 10, 2003

My name is Bob Ricker. I know about the gun industry, because I have seen it from the inside. Most of my professional life has been devoted to representing the interests of gun manufacturers, distributors, and dealers. After law school, I went to work for the National Rifle Association. From there, I moved on to become a lobbyist in California for gun manufacturers, industry groups, and gun owners’ organizations. I eventually became the executive director of the American Shooting Sports Council, or ASSC, which was then the largest and most influential industry trade association lobbying on behalf of the firearm industry.
The ASSC no longer exists. Why? Because we dared to question whether the gun industry was doing all it could to keep guns out of the hands of criminals and kids.

It is no secret to anyone in the gun industry that there are major problems with the way guns are marketed and distributed. The industry has known for years that there are too many dealers who don’t care about selling responsibly. Some are blatantly corrupt, make illegal sales, and work hand in hand with gun traffickers to supply the illegal market. Others pretend they don’t realize what’s going on when people come into the gun shop and make straw purchases or buy huge quantities of guns that they will re-sell. Manufacturers and distributors could easily identify these rogue dealers, and stop the flow of guns into the criminal market. Instead the industry has adopted a view that nothing is wrong as long as they “see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil”.

The people who own and run these companies are not stupid. They realize that greater industry action to ensure that guns are sold safely and responsibly is possible and would curb the supply of firearms to the illegal market. But why do they refuse to take action to curb the flow of guns into the illegal market?
The industry has two great fears. First, the industry is scared to death of the eight hundred pound guerilla known as the NRA. They saw what happened to Ed Shultz, the former CEO of Smith & Wesson, when he told the NRA they were wrong and instituted reforms in the way guns were marketed and distributed. The resulting boycott almost destroyed the company.

Secondly, the industry is very afraid of being held legally accountable for what it’s been doing all these years.

A few years ago, as cities started bringing lawsuits, the threat of legal responsibility really began to get the industry’s attention. A lot of people in the industry were prepared to make changes. They realized that the industry might be in a lot of trouble when judges and juries began to find out how the gun business really works.

ASSC began to strongly advocate that the industry adopt a more proactive approach as a means of dealing with the risk of liability. I argued that the industry should stop relying on its old excuses and start doing what it can to clean up the distribution system. There were a lot of other people in the industry who knew that was the right thing to do.

But unfortunately there were others, including the NRA, who adamantly opposed reform. They insisted that any changes would be seen as an admission that the industry has certain responsibilities and wasn’t living up to them in the past. They not only opposed reforms, but did everything they could to silence me and others within ASSC who spoke out in favor of change. Eventually the NRA joined forces with the hard-liners in the industry to eliminate ASSC and suppress any countervailing view.

As I said before, there are two things the gun industry fears. Congress is now threatening to eliminate one of them. The immunity legislation now pending in Congress would remove the threat of legal responsibility, which has been the only real incentive for the industry to take voluntary constructive action to curb the flow of guns into the illegal market.

I have seen the dangers of giving this industry immunity from suit. Almost twenty years ago, in California, I helped write a far more limited immunity law that has been used to protect some of the industry’s worst actors. For years, victims of gun violence in California have been denied their day in court and the industry’s marketing and distribution secrets have been safe. As a result of that injustice, I am happy to say that the California Legislature bucked the national trend and repealed the limited immunity law I helped draft many years ago.

If enacted, H.R. 1036 and S. 659 would give the industry far greater immunity than the repealed California statute. The bill would leave the industry with only the NRA to fear. My years of experience with the gun industry tells me that, if this bill is enacted, the industry will never become part of the solution to gun violence in this country. Instead, there is the greater danger that bad industry practices will become an even bigger part of the problem.