Gun Owners Group Calls for Inquiry Into Firearms Industry’s Secret Sharing of Customer Data

This story was originally published by ProPublica. ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. A group representing firearms owners has asked three federal agencies to investigate how the gun industry’s main lobbying group secretly used the intimate details of weapons buyers for political purposes. In making the request, Gun Owners for Safety cited a ProPublica investigation that detailed how the National Shooting Sports Foundation turned over sensitive personal information on gun buyers to political operatives while presenting itself as a fierce advocate for the privacy of firearms owners. The letter — sent last week to the FBI, the Federal Trade Commission and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — called the NSSF’s secret program that spanned nearly two decades “underhanded.” “Gun owners’ privacy is not a partisan or ideological issue,” wrote Malcolm Smith, ... Read full article.