Every day, gun makers create increasingly deadly weapons, market them irresponsibly, and sell them through dealers who allow guns to fall into the wrong hands. But for too long, the gun industry has been insulated from the grim consequences of its business practices — due, in part, to groups like the National Rifle Association and National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF).
This past year, The Smoking Gun has helped expose the gun industry’s role in our gun violence epidemic by publishing over 90 news stories, reports, fact sheets, and profiles on gun makers and dealers. Our work is aided by intrepid reporters and researchers who uncover new information about bad actors within the gun industry. Here we’ve compiled some of the best news stories and investigations about the gun industry this past year in case you missed them.
january
- NPR: “Longtime NRA leader Wayne LaPierre steps down”
By Eric Westervelt
After more than three decades with the organization, Wayne LaPierre resigned from the NRA ahead of a trial in New York where a jury ultimately found the NRA and LaPierre liable for financial misconduct and corruption.
- Bloomberg: “Biden Aims to Impose Tightest Gun-Export Restrictions in Decades”
By David Kocieniewski, Jessica Brice, Michael Smith, and Michael Riley
After a Bloomberg investigation found that a steep increase in U.S.-exported firearms led to higher crime rates overseas, including a mass shooting in Thailand in 2022 and the assassination of a presidential candidate in Ecuador in 2023, the Department of Commerce announced new rules to tighten firearm exports.
february
- USAToday: “Gun shops that sell the most guns used in crime revealed in new list”
By Nick Penzenstadler
A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request unearthed the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) list of over 1,300 gun dealers across the country that had 25 or more crime guns traced back to them in 2022 within three years of being sold. Notorious gun dealer Arrowhead Pawn made the list, as did dozens of Bass Pro Shops and Turner’s Outdoorsman retail locations.
- NBC News: “A popular gun influencer conspired to illegally import machine guns. He still has a home on YouTube.”
By David Ingram
Despite pleading guilty in October 2023 to two federal crimes, including conspiracy to import illegal machine guns and violating U.S. sanctions on Russia, gun influencer Larry Vickers still has a YouTube channel showcasing some of the illegally acquired weapons.
march
- USAToday: “Age verification to buy alcohol, but not rifle ammo? How kids can get access in a few clicks”
By Nick Penzenstadler
This article highlights an Everytown investigation that revealed how easy it is for minors to buy AR-15 ammunition online, despite minimum age requirements. The report found that, at most, seven major ammunition retailers required customers to simply check a box confirming their age or buried the legal requirements of purchasing ammunition in their terms and conditions.
- Reuters: “US states tell Glock to preserve evidence for probe in machine gun conversion”
By Diana Novak Jones
In March, the attorneys general of 12 states and Washington, D.C., sent a letter requesting that Glock preserve all documents related to its pistols’ ability to be converted into machine guns. The request came after Chicago and Everytown Law filed a lawsuit against Glock claiming that the company has been aware of this problem for decades and failed to act. And earlier this month, the attorneys general of Minnesota and New Jersey both filed separate lawsuits against Glock for similar claims.
april
- Wall Street Journal: “U.S. Guns Flow Into Haiti as Gangs Push to Take Control”
By Juan Forero and José de Córdoba
Gangs attempting to take over Haiti have primarily been armed with guns manufactured and sold in the U.S. but trafficked through straw purchasers that American gun shops failed to stop. Another piece in the Washington Post noted that nearly 85 percent of the crime guns recovered in Haiti and submitted to the ATF in 2021 were traced back to the U.S.
- The New York Times: “Under Half of Illegal Gun Cases Tracked by A.T.F. Were Involved in Black Market Sales”
By Glenn Thrush
New ATF data revealed that 41 percent of gun trafficking investigations (3,404 cases) between 2017 and 2021 involved unlicensed gun sellers, and another 40 percent involved straw purchasers, or people who illegally purchase firearms for those who are most likely prohibited from owning them. Another 17 percent of trafficking investigations involved firearms stolen from licensed gun dealers.
may
- Wall Street Journal: “New York Seeks to Block Pistols That Can Be Modified to Fire Like Machine Guns”
By Cameron McWhirter
Legislatures introduced a first-of-its-kind bill in New York that would block companies from selling new Glock-style pistols into the state that could easily be converted into machine guns using third-party devices known as “Glock switches.”
juLY
- Wall Street Journal: “A Divisive Symbol Behind Trump’s Attempted Assassination: The AR-15”
By Zusha Elinson and Cameron McWhirter
The shooter who attempted to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13, 2024 — killing one member of the audience and wounding two others — used a DPMS AR-15. Despite the AR-15’s role in the assassination attempt and numerous mass shootings, Trump “has given his political support to ensuring that the AR-15 remains legal.”
august
- ProPublica: “Historic Gun Suit Survives Serious Legal Threat Engineered by Indiana Republicans”
By Vernal Coleman
In August 1999, the city of Gary, Indiana, filed a lawsuit against Glock, Smith & Wesson, and other gun makers alleging that the companies were involved in illegal gun sales. The gun industry has backed several attempts to end the decades-long lawsuit, and in March, Indiana’s legislature passed a bill to block cities from suing gun makers that would have applied retroactively. However, Indiana Superior Court Judge John Sedia ruled that applying the bill retroactively violated constitutional rights and upheld Gary’s ability to continue its lawsuit.
september
- The New York Times: “He’s Known as ‘Ivan the Troll.’ His 3D-Printed Guns Have Gone Viral.”
By Lizzie Dearden and Thomas Gibbons-Neff
This in-depth investigation charts how the FGC-9, a mostly 3D-printed semi-automatic rifle, has helped arm insurgents, terrorists, drug dealers, and militia members in at least 15 countries. John Elik, a resident of Illinois who is known online as “Ivan the Troll,” has helped spread the files and instructions for creating the FGC-9 — and far-right political views — as the figurehead of Deterrence Dispensed, a hub for 3D gun printing.
october
- The Guardian: “NRA chief involved in gruesome cat killing as college fraternity member”
By Stephanie Kirchgaessner
According to The Guardian, the NRA’s new leader, Doug Hamlin, “was involved decades ago in the sadistic killing of a fraternity house cat named BK” while serving as the fraternity’s president at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Hamlin and four of his fraternity brothers pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor charge of animal cruelty after the gruesome incident caused an uproar in December 1979.
- NBC News: “As YouTube cracks down on machine gun videos, some ‘GunTubers’ are panicking”
By David Ingram
Several prominent “GunTubers” said that they were leaving YouTube after the platform introduced age restrictions and prohibited videos showing automatic weapons and linking to firearm sales, among other changes. The updates led to frustration among gun creators who built large audiences and lucrative partnerships through the platform. As one GunTuber said, “It’ll be a much, much different version of the gun industry” without YouTube.
- ProPublica: “Without Knowledge or Consent”
By Corey G. Johnson
A ProPublica investigation found that at least 10 gun companies — including Glock, Mossberg, Remington, and Smith & Wesson — gave customers’ personal information to the NSSF, the gun industry’s trade association, to build a database for electing pro-gun politicians. The NSSF’s database is highly ironic given that the organization has repeatedly railed against government and corporate attempts to learn more about gun owners, alleging that the information could be used to create a registry “akin to a watchlist” and the “first step to confiscation.”
november
- AP: “Sig Sauer ordered to pay $11 million to Philadelphia man wounded by holstered pistol”
By Michael Rubinkam
A Philadelphia jury awarded $11 million to a man whose holstered Sig Sauer P320 pistol fired on its own as he went downstairs, wounding him in the leg. The verdict was the second this year against Sig Sauer for the P320, which has allegedly wounded over 100 people, yet the company maintains that the gun is safe.
december
- CBS News: “Police illegally sell restricted weapons, supplying crime”
By E.D. Cauchi
In Adair, Iowa, a small town with a population of 794, the police department’s request for 90 machine guns, including an M134 minigun, raised suspicion, leading to an investigation into Police Chief Bradley Wendt, who was found guilty of illegally acquiring and selling weapons for profit. This case is part of a broader pattern of law enforcement officials across the country illegally selling military-grade firearms to civilians.
- The New York Times: “Trump Has ‘Lost Faith’ in N.R.A., Says Gun Group Official”
By Danny Hakim
Bill Bachenberg, the NRA’s first vice president and a fake elector for Trump in the 2020 election, said in a letter to NRA board members that Trump has “lost faith” in the NRA and was upset the organization had not done more to help his election. The letter serves as more evidence of the NRA’s decline in recent years amid scandals and legal battles.
- NBC News: “A simple device could help curb accidental gun deaths, but most firearms don’t have it”
By Suzy Khimm and Lewis Kamb
An NBC investigation found that since 2000, at least 277 people have been killed in unintentional shootings in which the shooters mistakenly believed their guns were unloaded because the magazines were removed. John Moses Browning developed a “magazine disconnect” safety to prevent such incidents in 1911, but because gun makers are not required to include the devices in their guns, many simply don’t.