The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the gun industry’s trade association, has spent years lobbying for legislation to loosen restrictions on carrying firearms in public. But The Trace and Rolling Stone obtained an NSSF market research report — produced in 2018 and based on a survey of 1,800 respondents spanning four generations — that found “more Americans feel less safe when it comes to people legally carrying concealed guns in public.”
The findings extend across demographics and politics as well, including gun owners and those who don’t own guns. According to The Trace and Rolling Stone, the NSSF’s “Multi-Generational Research: Purchases, Perceptions, and Participation for the Firearms Industry” report found that “[w]hile millennials, liberals, and non-owners are more adamant about feeling less safe, a majority of gun owners and conservatives also don’t feel safe when it comes to concealed carry.”
Despite these findings, the NSSF continues to push for the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, a federal bill that would override state laws and make it so anyone allowed to carry in one state — whether that state requires a concealed-carry permit or not — to carry in any other state, even in those with stricter regulations where they otherwise wouldn’t be allowed to carry. The findings are also at odds with gun ads, like the kind shown below, that exploit fear and pitch concealed-carry handguns as the only solution for protection.
a closer look at the report
According to the NSSF’s “Muti-Generational Research” report:
- 57 percent of non-gun owners said concealed carry made them feel “less safe.”
- 28 percent of gun owners felt “less safe,” and another 27 percent felt “no impact,” meaning concealed carry did not make a majority of gun owners feel safer.
- Only 18 percent of respondents “completely agreed” with the National Rifle Association’s notion that the “only way to stop a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun.”
The report also noted that after over a decade of high-profile mass shootings, “the NSSF may have already lost millennials,” with 59 percent saying they would support a political movement to abolish the Second Amendment.
In a December 2018 webinar summarizing the report’s findings, neither the NSSF nor the market research firm that helped prepare the report mentioned the concealed-carry data. But they did note that a “majority of Americans think gun laws should be made stronger,” as shown in the slide below.
prioritizing profits
More materials uncovered by The Trace and Rolling Stone show why the NSSF stays the course: Concealed carry is a profit engine. Another NSSF report from 2018, titled “Concealed Carry Market,” concluded that “the more frequently someone carries a handgun the more they tend to spend on handguns, ammunition and accessories,” calling the relationship “very strong” across all demographics.
In a webinar summarizing the report, the NSSF shared a slide breaking down that additional spending. Notably, women who said they “always” carry firearms concealed spend over $250 more on firearms and ammunition in a given year than those who “never,” “rarely,” or “occasionally” carry guns. Among men, that spending difference is just over $180.
Another slide notes that “men rule the carry market,” but “women are up and coming and intend to carry more — they also buy more stuff!” (Read our interview with experts on the gun industry’s attempts to try to reach more women here.) The NSSF also notes that people who carry concealed firearms tend to “spend on defensive items,” such as knives and tactical pens, and take more training courses, propping up other segments of the gun industry. Finally, the slide deck urges NSSF members — gun makers, dealers, and shooting ranges — to “[e]ncourage those interested but too nervous to carry to take training,” which can lead them to carry guns “more frequently” and spend more money.
The NSSF’s market research shows why the group pushes concealed carry so aggressively. For the gun industry, it’s about revenue — not safety. The “Concealed Carry Market” report states that as “the ranks” of concealed carriers “increase so will the need for carry-friendly handguns, ammunition and carry equipment and accessories.”
While the NSSF promotes concealed-carry reciprocity legislation, the group has never publicly acknowledged what its own data says: that concealed carry has a negative psychological effect on everyone, including gun owners.