That loud sound you’re hearing is the collective jaws of gun control activists hitting the floor. They’re exasperated and can’t believe years of their antigun propaganda hasn’t worked. They are beside themselves that Americans would choose exercising the constitutional rights to keep and bear arms over backing more gun control restrictions and being lenient and soft on repeat criminals.
The polling also backs up recent reporting from big national media outlets revealing that antigun organizations and politicians have “conceded” that “gun control is no longer their top issue.”
“We know the political realities,” U.S. Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) recently told NOTUS. That “political reality” is that Americans don’t want more gun control.
That’s exactly what the firearm industry has seen over the past few years. And polling is now catching up.
The ‘New’ News
So, what’s all the “new” news? Recent survey data conducted in partnership between the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) and the well-respected polling firm The McLaughlin Group revealed Americans are significantly more likely to support and exercise their Second Amendment rights now than they were just 18 months ago. They are less likely to support increased gun control restrictions pushed by antigun activists.
The three main takeaways from the polling are simple and straightforward.
First, “Independent voters are more aligned with enforcement-focused crime policies than additional gun-control legislation,” the polling summary states. The data showed that more than 63 percent of survey respondents agreed that enforcing existing laws and arresting and prosecuting criminals would do the most to reduce crime, compared with less than 30 percent who thought passing additional gun control laws would help.
This new reality tracks with what NSSF and its membership has seen, especially over the past few years. Since 2020, there have been more than 26.2 million new first-time gun owners, those who previously may have opposed gun rights but were driven to lawful gun ownership due to surges in crime in cities where “defund the police” budget cuts were implemented and soft-on-criminal George Soros-funded prosecutors came into office. Those two policies largely backfired as innocent law-abiding Americans turned instead to exercising their Second Amendment rights — many of whom were politically Independent, or even Democrats.
Changing Face of Firearms
The second main takeaway from the new polling data is that gun control groups often ignore that women are much more persuadable on gun rights, or even open to gun ownership, than these activist groups tend to believe.
“Only 18% of women view additional gun-control laws as the primary solution to public safety concerns,” the polling report says. “At the same time, women continue to represent one of the fastest-growing segments of new firearm owners and concealed carry permit holders nationwide. Increasing numbers of women view firearm ownership as a practical means of personal protection rather than a political statement.”
That’s exactly what NSSF data has revealed in the past few years as well, as women of all races and backgrounds voted with their wallets and purses at the gun retail counter, crowded into firearm retailer concealed carry classes and went to the ranges in large groups to train.
The Cut even proclaimed, “Black women are the new face of American gun ownership,” largely due to their overwhelming concerns for safety and protecting their children in neighborhoods with increased crime and reduced police presence.
The third major takeaway from the new CPRC/McGlaughlin Group survey is that minority Americans are overwhelmingly choosing to exercise their Second Amendment rights, creating the most diverse gun owning community in history. No more can media outlets and gun control groups claim gun owners are just “pale, stale and male,” old white men. The fact is that the faces of firearms owners is changing. It has been and is picking up pace.
“Many minority communities experience disproportionately high rates of violent crime and appear increasingly skeptical that additional restrictions on responsible firearm owners will meaningfully improve public safety,” the report states.
What’s the data show? Among African-American and Hispanic-American respondents, 62 percent opposed to creating and implementing new gun control laws.
NSSF data has revealed significant increases in the percentages of minority community members purchasing firearms in recent years. According to NSSF retailer survey data, law-abiding Hispanic Americans purchased firearms in 2020 at a 49 percent higher rate than they did in 2019. African Americans purchased firearms at a rate that was58 percent higher than the previous year and for Asian Americans it was close to 43 percent. Those rates have cooled since but have created “new normals” of gun ownership among nearly every demographic.
The polling memo concluded with a succinct message for both Second Amendment supporters and gun control activist counterparts: “The most persuasive message across all communication platforms is not simply one that defends gun rights — it is demonstrating how lawful firearm ownership, effective law enforcement, and accountability for violent criminals work together to create safer communities.”
Losing Strategy
Gun control groups looking for funding donations and antigun politicians seeing voter approval should take note. Pushing for more and more restrictions on law-abiding Americans’ ability to exercise Second Amendment rights is not a winning strategy. But they may already be realizing that reality.
A recent news report from the national media outlet NOTUS puts it plainly: “Democrats concede gun control is no longer their top issue.”
Pro-Second Amendment groups cannot rest on their laurels or take anything for granted and need to remain engaged to keep voters educated and activated on these critical issues. But with historically low crime and historically high and diverse gun ownership, Americans might be seriously reconsidering their beliefs around firearms, gun ownership and community safety.
The hard work for the firearm industry and Second Amendment supporters continues.
This week has been one for the record books…the Supreme Court has handed down some momentous decisions, the Strait of Hormuz is, or isn’t, seeing shipping traffic, Wall Street has lost some of its luster with investors and…soaring temperatures are being blamed for hundreds of deaths in Spain as quakes in Venezuela have killed hundreds of others.
The Supremes sided with the Trump administration on his assertion that he had the right to strip humanitarian protections from Haitians and Syrians. As pundits opine, the more than one-million potentially covered by the decision are making what they hope are unnecessary preparations to face potential deportation. Meanwhile, employers are wondering where they will find replacement workers should the administration actually begin deportations. In other significant decisions, the high court sided - twice- with Second Amendment arguments, ruling against anti-gun measures that will have a ripple effect on other jurisdictions that have modeled their anti-gun regulations after those the court invalidated. Read more in Dan Zimmerman’s column in today’s edition.
And the industry has lost another familiar face. The Outdoor Wire received word late this week that Roy Jenks, longtime chronicler of the Smith & Wesson brand and products, has died. Jenks, who chronicled Smith & Wesson’s progress from their first model to today, died Wednesday. We’ll have more details as they become available next week in the Wires.
As we look at the week ahead, most of us are focusing on the long weekend observation of our collective semiquincentennial. That’s the nation’s 250th anniversary for those of us who prefer that term to bisesquicentennial. Better known as the America250 celebration, we’re all preparing for a long weekend of parades, fireworks, family gatherings and….heat. According to the National Weather Service, the eastern half of the United States will face a “dangerous heatwave” with widespread 90+ degree temperatures and the West will face extreme fire dangers along with scorching temperatures. Severe weather and flooding threaten the central U.S. and scattered storms will dampen spirits across the Gulf Coast and Southern Rockies. The good news? No plagues of frogs or locust in the forecasts.
In observance of this significant national observance, we won’t be in your in box next Saturday morning. Hopefully, you won’t notice as you’ll be doing something fun instead.
It's been a good couple of weeks for the cause of defending the Second Amendment in the courts. On the other side of the ledger, that means it's been a rough go for our dear friends in the civilian disarmament industrial complex.
First it was Hemani, with the Supreme Court ruling unanimously that occasional use of marijuana doesn't justify stripping an individual of his right to keep and bear arms. The Court didn't buy the government's argument that dropping a gummy before bed or occasionally smoking a joint is prima facie evidence that someone is "categorically violent and dangerous."
Strangely (or not) the gun control industry was uncharacteristically subdued after that defeat, despite the fact that they'd gotten in on side of the .gov in arguing for loss of gun rights. That's probably because while their dozens of member -- and more importantly, the individuals and NGOs that fund them -- are largely on the side of weed legalization. So, not wanting to antagonize most of the people who pay them, they chose the better part of valor and stayed mostly stum.
And then SCOTUS dropped the Wolford decision yesterday, shining a deadly ray of sunlight on Hawaii's vampire rule. As Justice Alito wrote, Hawaii's law "hobbles what the Second Amendment protects: the right of Americans to carry arms for self-defense as they go about their daily lives."
That, after all, is the business that Brady, Everytown and Giffords is in. It's their passion. Their reason for being. So when they took yet another legal body blow, they found their voices and full-throatedly condemned the new dystopian landscape the high Court has allegedly ushered in.
“I will not mince words: This deeply dangerous majority opinion privileges guns over everything and all people in society. It is eminently reasonable that visitors receive property owners’ permission to bring firearms onto their private property open to the public. Yet the court has manipulated a legal test of their own design to launch this attack on public safety and our freedom from gun violence. What's more, they are thwarting the will of the people and the legislature."
Today’s decision has stripped away a fundamental baseline for safety; instead of gun owners asking for permission, the burden is now shifted onto all kinds of businesses—local coffee shops, family-owned bookstores, and neighborhood gyms—to take active steps to opt out.
And not to be outdone, some of the anti-gunners' most supportive and dutiful stenographers in the media jumped in with both feet.
[T]he supermajority killed the law because it was offended that Hawaiʻi would dare try to mitigate the violence that SCOTUS has unleashed through its radical, incoherent gun rights jurisprudence. Justice Samuel Alito’s opinion for the court bristles with annoyance toward the state government’s attempts to protect people on private property from getting shot to death. Constitutional law has given way to six justices’ ad hoc nullification of any law that favors human life over the paranoid obsessions of gun enthusiasts.
And that all happened before news broke later in the day that Abigail Spanberger's "assault weapons" and "high capacity" magazine ban can't be enforced in Virginia...at least for now.
All of the bleating is as predictable as it is enjoyable. And hyperbolic, too. As always. Prognostications of blood-soaked pavement and bodies stacked like cordwood is the regular MO of the gun control industry and its backers in politics and the media, despite the fact that the dire warnings never pan out.
Outlaw "may issue" permitting? Smash the panic button.
Another state enacts permitless carry? Cue the parking lot shootout predictions
Zero dollar tax stamps? Warn of silent snipers behind every bush.
Yes, it's annoying and tedious. Not to mention consistently wrong.
Unless you're unfortunate enough to live in one of the under-policed non-prosecution zones that big city mayors have established (with help from Bond villains like George Soros, Michael Bloomberg and the Joyce Foundation) in the country's population centers, Americans have literally never been safer in their lifetimes. And all this while gun ownership and concealed carry have never been easier or more widespread.
So let the anti-gunners continue to kick and scream after each loss they absorb. In the meantime, Americans will continue to buy guns, suppressors, pistol braces and SBRs, all while enjoying their enumerated civil rights in a country that's hasn't been safer in over a century.
One of Leupold's extraordinary employees, Simary Sam, Supervisor, Assembly.
When I kicked off The Maker Series, the first person to reach out was Leupold's Shawn Skipper.
"Leupold wants to be a part of this," he said. So, Leupold put me on a plane to Oregon and gave me a tour of their factory.
Like many gun writers, I arrived at Leupold expecting to be impressed by technology: state-of-the-art machinery, precision engineering, and all the sophisticated processes that turn raw materials into top-tier optics.
I saw all that. But what really struck me wasn’t the machines. It was the people.
As we moved through the factory floor in Beaverton, I realized I was paying less attention to the equipment and more to the men and women operating it. At every station, someone had mastered a skill most of us couldn’t begin to replicate.
It’s easy to assume machines do most of the work in modern manufacturing. Leupold shatters that assumption. Your riflescope wasn’t built by something. It was built by someone. And that someone is special.
What stood out immediately was the concentration. In a world full of distractions, Leupold workers focus on intricate assemblies that would give most people fits. Everywhere I looked, people were zeroed in on details measured in thousandths of an inch. Components were assembled, inspected, adjusted and verified with a level of care that bordered on artistry.
The gold ring is more than a logo. It’s a promise. A symbol of generations of craftsmanship, innovation, and pride built into every optic that leaves Beaverton. Long before it finds its way onto a rifle, that golden ring passes through the hands of skilled Americans dedicated to getting the details right.
The assembly areas fascinated me most. Rows of highly skilled employees moved with practiced dexterity, placing tiny components exactly where they belonged. Some jobs needed extraordinary hand-eye coordination; others called for the kind of patience and precision most people just don’t have.
Watching them work reminded me of surgeons, jewelers and master watchmakers.
We hunters and shooters think we’re detail-oriented. We debate quarter-inch groups, torque values, reticle subtensions and ballistic coefficients. But after seeing the Leupold team at work, I realized we’re amateurs. The professionals? They’re all in Beaverton making your riflescope.
The men and women on the assembly floor operate at a level far beyond ours. Even the most meticulous among us would seem careless by comparison.
After talking with several employees, I learned their attention isn’t just for perfectionism’s sake. It’s driven by purpose. Every lens, every component, every adjustment gets their full attention because they understand that the smallest detail can affect the finished product.
It also became clear that intelligence at Leupold is everywhere. Brilliant minds aren’t confined to engineering offices or executive suites. They’re on the factory floor, too.
Engineers solve complex problems. Machinists turn raw materials into precision components. Technicians detect imperfections most people would never see. Assemblers trust experience as much as instrumentation, often sensing when something isn’t quite right before any measurement confirms it. Then, before your optic ever leaves the factory, one final set of Oregon-based hands scrutinizes it with a level of precision and discipline that would bring a tear to a drill instructor’s eye.
There’s a difference between knowing how to do something and understanding why it matters. Leupold’s people know both.
As I walked through the factory, I couldn’t help but notice that no one seemed disconnected from the mission. Whether someone was machining components, assembling riflescopes, building red dots, testing electronics, or inspecting finished optics, there was a quiet sense that the work mattered. The optic on the bench in front of them would eventually find its way into someone’s hands; a hunter on a mountainside, a competitor on the firing line, a law enforcement officer, or a service member in harm’s way. I don’t pretend to know what motivated every person I met, but it was clear they understood their work had a purpose beyond the factory walls, and that was something I came to deeply respect.
Another realization came to me during my visit.
When I first envisioned The Hunting Wire’s Maker Series, I didn’t have a particular person or company in mind. I wasn’t picturing a specific gunsmith, engineer, engraver, designer or machinist. I just knew our industry spends too much time celebrating products and brands, and not enough time celebrating the people who make those products possible.
The makers at Leupold, engineers, machinists, technicians and assemblers, rarely ask for recognition, but their commitment is the foundation of the company’s reputation. After witnessing their dedication, I felt a responsibility as a hunter to honor their work in the field. Knowing the care and expertise poured into every riflescope, I realized using their equipment is a privilege that deserves my best effort and respect.
Leupold’s story is also a story of American craftsmanship. In an age when so many products are manufactured entirely overseas, there is something powerful about watching skilled American workers assemble, calibrate, test, and inspect every riflescope in Oregon. The result is more than an optic; it's a product shaped by generations of expertise, precision, discipline, and pride.
Touring Leupold changed how I see optics. Now, I see not just materials and technology, but also the talent and work ethic behind each product. Excellence at Leupold isn’t an accident. It’s built one careful decision at a time by people who take pride in what they do.
My visit left me proud, not just to use Leupold’s products, but to celebrate the American spirit behind them. The real story isn’t just the optics. It’s the people who make them, and the generations of craftsmanship and dedication they represent.
Leupold loves to remind you their rifle optics are assembled in America.
America should be just as proud of Leupold.
Look for more from the Leupold factory floor as we continue The Maker Series.
From boatloads of Nigerian gold to a “recently departed acquaintance in the Republic of _____” there are no shortage of schemes designed to hustle anyone who’s gullible enough to think it’s really possible to get rich by giving someone you don’t know all your banking information.
The latest cons range from using screws to make you think you’ve hung up the gas nozzle when pumping gas to using RFID-readers to steal your confidential credit card information.
Then there are the now time-worn, but surprisingly still effective internet cons that involve fake invoices that look exactly like “real” invoices. They can come from any company and cover everything from your “Annual Software Protection Plan” to extensions of your car warranty-“regardless of the year, make or mileage.”
Sometimes, however, the scammers are guilty of “failing to read the room.” They’ve used the dark web to acquire your basic information (it’s for sale there, trust us), done a bit of work to see some of your browsing history, and generated what they believe to be an invoice that’s designed to set their hustle into motion.
The hustle isn’t to get you to pay the invoice, that’s only the hook. The hustle involves the operator you talk with when you call to argue the invoice isn’t legitimate. The operator’s job is simple: use conversation and concern to obtain your banking information. It sounds legit, they “need your basic banking information (name on account, routing and account numbers) to “make certain the un-authorized funds are promptly redeposited into your account.”
If/when they get the information, they’ll likely tell you they will “test” the transaction engine via a debit and re-deposit of $1 to verify the account information. They’ll assure you the entire process is secure end-to-end, then tell you to expect your refund in 24-48 hours. They’ll probably give you a toll free number to call if there’s an issue.
You hang up, relieved to have headed a scammer off at the pass. That relief passes the instant you check your balances and find out they’ve not only scammed you for that amount, they’ve essentially cleaned out your account.
Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? But people are scammed out of hundreds of millions of dollars every year by similar hustles.
Fortunately, the scammers don’t alway know enough about the customer, the company or the alleged product purchased to realize they’ve blown the whistle on themselves. That happened to one of our folks earlier this week when an authentic-looking invoice arrived from Apple. As a longtime Apple user, the invoice looked absolutely authentic. But when we saw what was supposedly purchased and pre-paid, we burst out laughing.
Rather than waste words explaining, we’ll just let you see the invoice. Be prepared to chuckle.
Apparently scammers really do believe it possible to buy guns online in America. For some of us (especially those of us who were young adults during our bicentennial celebrations) that was once true. But those days, like those bicentennial youth, are long gone.
