Are firearms manufactures to blame for violence involving guns? According to this article from The Washington Examiner, headlined, “House investigators want gun companies to testiify on marketing in wake of mass shootings“, some are saying ‘yes they are’.
House investigators want three firearm companies to testify at a July 20 hearing on gun violence in the wake of mass shootings in New York, Texas and Illinois.
Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, New York Democrat and chairwoman of the House Oversight Committee, said Thursday they will take a closer look at the marketing behind “AR-15-style” weapons that are usually tied to mass shootings.
Ms. Maloney requested information and testimony from Daniel Defense, Smith & Wesson Brands and Sturm, Ruger & Company.
“Products sold by your company have been used for decades to carry out homicides and even mass murders, yet your company has continued to market assault weapons to civilians,” Ms. Maloney said in each letter.
Specifically, the committee wants information on the sale and marketing of “AR-15-style semiautomatic rifles and similar firearms,” including revenue and profit information, internal data on deaths or injuries caused by these firearms and marketing and promotional materials.
National Director of the Knights Party of the Ku Klux Klan, centrally based in Harrison, Arkansas, Thomas Robb said, “Why would firearm makers have to turn over revenue and profit information? I thought people went into business to make a profit? Why would they have to testify or answer questions about their businesses because some crazy person used one of their firearms they manufactured? This is as crazy as calling Ford, Chevy, GM, and other automobile manufactures in to testify to the House Committee over their products because some drunk person used one of their vehicles while intoxicated and killed another motorist in an accident! That sounds totally ridiculous right? Just as an automobile doesn’t kill anyone, the person driving it does, any firearm doesn’t just discharge itself, the person with their finger on the trigger does. Maybe automobiles should be banned, at least the high horsepower muscle ones?