A US senator this week criticized the gun industry for secretly collecting personal information from firearms owners for political purposes, calling it an “invasive and dangerous intrusion” into privacy and security.
In a the letter has been sent to the National Shooting Sports Foundation on Tuesday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal, R-Conn., questioned the legality of a “secret program” in which firearms manufacturers have shared confidential customer information with political figures for years.
Blumenthal quoted a ProPublica investigation which found that some of America’s most iconic gun manufacturers were secretly involved, even as the gun industry presented itself as a privacy advocate and fought against government and corporate efforts to track firearm ownership.
At least 10 gun companies, including Glock, Smith & Wesson and Remington, have passed on hundreds of thousands names, addresses and other private data—without the customers’ knowledge or consent—to the NSSF, which then entered the details into what became a massive database. The database has been used to rally gun-owner electoral support for industry candidates running for the White House and Congress.
Blumenthal, who chairs the Senate subcommittee on privacy, gave the NSSF until Nov. 21 to respond to several questions. He wanted to know more about which companies contributed information to the database, the type of customer information and whether the data was still being used by the organization or others.
The senator, who served as Connecticut’s attorney general for two decades and has consistently supported legislation to reduce gun violence, said he was also “disturbed” by the “flagrant discrepancies” between what ProPublica found and previous NSSF responses to his office.
In 2022, Blumenthal sent a list of questions to the NSSF after reading leaked documents that made a passing reference to the database. U his answerNSSF will not recognize the existence of the database.
“The secret compilation and sharing of private information by NSSF and its partners appears to have violated federal consumer protection laws and created significant risks to the privacy and safety of lawful gun owners,” Blumenthal wrote.
Customer information originally came from decades of warranty cards that were filled out and returned to gun manufacturers for rebates and repair or replacement programs. A ProPublica review of dozens of warranty cards from the 1970s to today found that some promised customers that their information would be kept strictly confidential. Others said that some information may be shared with third parties for marketing and sales purposes. None of the cards informed buyers that their data would be used by lobbyists and consultants to win elections.
Violating the promise of strict confidentiality in warranty cards or failing to mention that consumer information may be shared with NSSF could qualify as deceptive practices under the Federal Trade Commission Act, privacy and legal experts said. By law, companies must follow their privacy policies and clearly tell consumers how they will use their information.
NSSF did not respond to messages seeking comment. The group previously defended the data collection, saying in a statement to ProPublica that any suggestion of “unethical or illegal behavior is completely unfounded.” The statement said that “this activity is and always has been completely legal and compliant with the terms of any individual manufacturer, company, data broker or other entity.”
Glock and Smith & Wesson did not previously respond to ProPublica’s requests for comment. In the years since the data sharing program was launched, Remington has been split into two companies and sold. Remarms, which owns the old firearms division, said it was unaware of the company’s operations at the time. Another part of the company is now owned by Remington Ammunition, which said it “has not provided personal information to NSSF or any of its suppliers.”
Founded in 1961 and now based in Shelton, Connecticut, the NSSF represents thousands of firearms and ammunition manufacturers, distributors, retailers, publishers and shooting ranges. Although not as well known as the main lobbyist for gun owners, the National Rifle Association, the NSSF is respected and influential in the business, political and defense communities.
For two decades, the organization has rebelled against government and corporate efforts to collect information on gun buyers. Like recently like this yearThe NSSF pushed for laws that would prohibit credit card companies from creating special codes for firearms dealers, arguing that the codes could be used to create a registry of gun buyers.
As a group, gun owners are fiercely protective of their personal information. Many have good reasons. Among them are police officers, judges, victims of domestic violence and others who have faced serious threats of harm.
The arms industry began collecting the data about 17 months before the 2000 election, when it faced a cascade of financial, legal and political threats.
Over a three-year period, the NSSF database—complete with warranty card information and augmented with names from electoral rolls and hunting licenses—contained at least 5.5 million people. The information was central to what the NSSF called its voter education program, which involved sending letters, postcards and later e-mails to persuade gun buyers to vote for political candidates in the firearms industry.
Because privacy laws shield the names of firearm purchasers from public view, the data obtained by the NSSF gave it a unique opportunity to identify and connect with a large number of gun owners or shooting sports enthusiasts. NSSF has credited its program with helping elect George W. Bush and Donald Trump to the White House.
In April 2016, a contractor for NSSF’s voter education project handed over a large cache of data to Cambridge Analytica, a political consulting firm credited with playing a key role in Trump’s victory that year, according to internal Cambridge emails and documents. The company later ceased operations amid a global scandal over its handling of sensitive consumer data.
The data released to Cambridge included 20 years of gun owners’ warranty card information and a separate customer database of Cabela’s, a sporting goods retailer with about 70 stores in the United States and Canada.
Cambridge combined NSSF data with a wide range of sensitive data obtained from commercial data brokers. It included people’s incomes, their debts, their religion, where they got their prescriptions, the ages of their children and the purchases they made for their children. For women, it revealed intimate items such as underwear and other clothing they purchased, whether plus-size or petite.
The information was used to create psychological profiles of gun owners and assign scores to behavioral traits such as neuroticism and agreeableness. Because NSSF supports Trump and pro-gun congressional candidates, the profiles helped Cambridge tailor NSSF’s political messages to voters based on their nature.
