The chief executives of two leading gun manufacturers called mass shootings “local problems” that cannot be blamed on “inanimate” firearms when asked by a House panel Wednesday if they accept responsibility for selling the assault-style rifles used in most of the recent massacres.
The CEOs of Daniel Defense and Sturm, Ruger & Co. condemned the attacks in Buffalo, New York; Uvalde, Texas; and Highland Park, Illinois, while testifying before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform.
They said such mass murders needed to stop but balked when they were asked whether their companies would stop selling assault-style rifles.
“I believe that these murders are local problems that have to be solved locally,” said Marty Daniel, CEO of Daniel Defense, the company that made the rifle used by the Uvalde gunman to kill 19 children and two teachers.
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In his opening remarks, Daniel said lawmakers should focus on the “type of person” likely to commit mass shootings, and not the “type of gun” that person might use.
Asked by Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., the committee chair, whether Daniel will “accept personal responsibility” for his company’s role in that shooting, the CEO said the “murderers are responsible” before Maloney cut off the rest of his answer.
Christopher Killoy, CEO of Sturm, Ruger & Co., also deflected blame, saying the “firearm is an inanimate object.” Killoy said he does not consider his company’s “modern sporting rifles” to be “weapons of war.”
Maloney stopped Killoy from continuing his response to underscore the staggering profits gun companies have collected as gun violence surged nationwide.
Gun manufacturers have made more than $1 billion from selling assault-style weapons to civilians, with some companies seeing their earnings triple as gun deaths soared, Maloney said, citing internal financial data the committee obtained.
Daniel Defense took in more than $120 million in sales of AR-15-style rifles in 2021, compared with $40 million in 2019, the committee said. Sturm, Ruger & Co. saw its gross earnings nearly triple in the same time frame, from $39 million to more than $103 million.
Smith & Wesson — which sold the high-powered weapons used in the Fourth of July massacre in Highland Park — saw its revenue from all long guns more than doubled, from $108 million to $253 million, in that time period.
“It seems to me that if a company really cared that its products were being used to kill scores of Americans, it would stop selling them,” Maloney said. “But of course, the gun industry won’t do that because they’re making lots and lots of money from these weapons.”
The House Committee on Oversight and Reform began investigating the gun industry’s profits after the mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde. It released its initial findings Wednesday, ahead of the hearing to address the role the firearms industry plays in America’s gun violence epidemic.
The committee said leading gun manufacturers used “disturbing sales tactics,” including targeting the weapons to young men to prove their manliness, while failing to take basic steps to monitor the “violence and destruction their products have unleashed.”
More people died from gunfire in the United States in 2020, the most recent year for which complete data is available, than at any other time on record, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. There were more than 45,000 firearm deaths that year.
From 2019 to 2020, firearm homicide rates in the U.S. increased by almost 35%, the highest level recorded in over 25 years, affecting all age groups and widening the existing racial and ethnic disparities across the country, the CDC said.
In addition, active shooter incidents in 2021 surged by more than 50% from 2020 and nearly 97% from 2017, the FBI said in May.
Later this week, the House plans to vote on a ban on assault weapons for the first time since 1994.
“It is clear that gun makers are not going to change unless Congress forces them to finally put people over profits,” Maloney said.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Nbcnews.com
