Harold Hutchison
Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York excoriated firearms manufacturers over profits from firearms sales during a hearing Wednesday.
“This is about blood money,” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Between 2019 and 2021, two years, leading gun manufacturers Sturm and Ruger saw gross profits double to almost $280 million. In fact, during an earnings call, their CEO called the sales boom, ‘historic, ferocious, and that the future was bright.’ A month after that, an AR-556 pistol murdered ten people at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado.”
A mass shooting in a supermarket in Boulder killed 10 people in March 2021.
Ocasio-Cortez asked Nick Suplina, senior vice president for law and policy at Everytown for Gun Safety, what the profits were used for.
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“They are lobbying against every law that would regulate firearms, period,” Suplina said, listing expanded background checks and “red flag” laws as some of the measures firearms companies have opposed.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) estimated that 5.4 million Americans became new gun owners in 2021, according to a report issued in March.
“The Congresswoman is protected by firearms on Capitol Hill which are produced by the same manufacturers producing firearms for law-abiding citizens to exercise their Second Amendment rights,” NSSF spokesman Mark Oliva told The Daily Caller News Foundation.
“Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez reveals her anger isn’t for an industry that produces a Constitutionally-protected product but for the millions of Americans who choose to exercise their Second Amendment rights every year,” Oliva added. “That includes the over 14 million Americans that purchased a firearm for the first time in 2020 and 2021.”
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Ruger, Ocasio-Cortez, and Everytown for Gun Safety did not immediately respond to requests for comment from TheDCNF.
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