Gun Companies Gave Customers’ Sensitive Personal Information to Political Operatives

HellsBelle@sh.itjust.works to News@lemmy.world – 238 points – Gun Companies Gave Customers’ Sensitive Personal Information to Political Operatives
propublica.org

Those operatives, in turn, secretly employed the details to rally firearm owners to elect pro-gun politicians running for Congress and the White House, a ProPublica investigation has found.

The clandestine sharing of gun buyers’ identities — without their knowledge and consent — marked a significant departure for an industry that has long prided itself on thwarting efforts to track who owns firearms in America.

At least 10 gun industry businesses, including Glock, Smith & Wesson, Remington, Marlin and Mossberg, handed over names, addresses and other private data to the gun industry’s chief lobbying group, the National Shooting Sports Foundation. The NSSF then entered the gun owners’ details into what would become a massive database.

31

You are viewing a single comment
View all comments

Now is not the time to talk about gun privacy control.

I agree, we need action to protect people's privacy from unethical warrantless searches and monitoring.

Snowden tried to warn us...

Oh I got the point Squid, I disagree :)

Tell me, do you feel Jan 6th was a genuine coup attempt? As in, DJT and his ilk were actually interested in and attempting to maintain and consolidate their power in the government outside of the election results?

The facts reported by the Jan 6th committee made it clear that it was a premeditated coup attempt.

Exactly. Now assuming they were successful (or a future attempt is) how do we fight them? I somehow doubt a peaceful march will sway them to restore democracy.

What does this have to do with the post subject? I don't think anyone here is suggesting a peaceful march in that case.

I mistakenly thought Squid was suggesting that privacy for gun owners wasn't a valid topic for discussion.

Following that, I was establishing the importance of privacy for gun owners because, well... We may need them if there is a successful coup.

I have no idea what you mean by "DJT and his ilk." None of them were breaking into congress. The people that were wanted to install Trump as president and do it by executing Mike Pence. They made that very clear. So yes, that was a coup attempt. I'm not sure why you think Trump had to be directly involved to make it a coup attempt.

If you don't know who "DJT and his ilk" are, then who is "them" in your response?

Point is, if your government is about to be overrun, why would you give the government/state a monopoly on violence?

Do you trust the police/military to be the sole owners of firearms given the current political climate? I know you don't like cops Squid, and Trump has already threatened to deploy the military against civilians and political opponents.

I thought your point is it wasn't a coup attempt.

Your point seems to keep changing.

You also seem to think I want to ban guns for some reason. I don't know why because I never said I did.

My point hasn't changed at all, my point was to establish that you agree it was a coup attempt.

Given a possible coup, a list of all gun owners (regardless of political affiliation) is bad. Privacy rights are important, even for people we disagree with.

Remember when I said privacy rights aren't important? Because I sure don't.

Maybe I really did miss the point. What did you mean by, "Now is not the time to talk about gun privacy control."

I took it to mean you didn't think it was a valid issue for discussion.

You sure did.

“I agree with the comments of your guests there: This is not the time to be talking about legislation. We’re in the middle of that crisis right now.”

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4279085-speaker-johnson-says-now-not-the-time-to-discuss-gun-control-problem-is-the-human-heart-not-guns/

"It just goes to show that the politics from this Administration .. has nothing to do with people. They're going to continue to push an agenda. It's not the right agenda. In my opinion, it's not the right time to talk about what we see out there ... We've got to get back to God in this country, we have really gotten away from that from a moral standpoint. There's a lot of issues out there, she is dead wrong to bring that up at this time. It's just not the right time."

https://meidasnews.com/news/rep-collins-its-not-the-time-to-talk-about-gun-control

President Donald Trump was at the University Medical Center in Las Vegas on Wednesday visiting victims of Sunday’s mass shooting when a reporter asked him, “Do you think we have a gun violence problem?”

“We’re not going to talk about that today,” Trump responded. “We won’t talk about that.”

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/trump-says-its-the-wrong-time-to-discuss-gun-control-in-las-vegas-even-gun-owners-disagree/

“There’s a time and place for a political debate, but now is the time to unite as a country,” Sanders said. “There’s currently an open and ongoing law enforcement investigation, a motive is yet to be determined and it would be premature for us to discuss policy when we don’t fully know all the facts or what took place last night.”

https://www.cnn.com/2017/10/02/politics/sarah-sanders-las-vegas/index.html

“It’s particularly inappropriate to politicize an event like this. It just happened within the last day and half. Entirely premature to be discussing about legislative solutions if any,” McConnell said.

https://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/03/mitch-mcconnell-gun-control-las-vegas-shooting-243418

I can keep going if you like, but something tells me you still won't get it if I do.

Squid, you are always a joy to converse with. I'd like to know what your "something" is but something tells me you won't tell me if I ask 😉

You could have just mentioned that you were referencing other responses to previous events. Regardless, I'll take the L because I guess I did miss the point.

1 more...