Associated Press Special Report and link to read in it’s entirety: The gun industry’s national trade association and lobbying organization considered moving its offices from Newtown after last year’s mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the president and CEO of the National Shooting Sports Foundation said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press.
With a handful of the nearly 50 foundation employees confronted by angry neighbors and protesters appearing outside the foundation’s headquarters, Steve Sanetti said he had to look at the situation from “a strategic standpoint” and determine whether having the name of Newtown associated with the organization would affect its mission to promote hunting and shooting sports.
“We had to consider whether a move was appropriate,” Sanetti said Wednesday. “But I polled all the employees here and, to a person, it was like, ‘Don’t move. We like it here. We’re part of the community. We have nothing to be ashamed or embarrassed of. We didn’t do this. We’ve been fighting this sort of thing. Stay the course.'”
While the Northeast is not necessarily steeped in the hunting culture, like other parts of the country, Sanetti said the foundation is located in Connecticut because the manufacturing base of the firearms industry was historically located here. NSSF boasts a membership of 9,500 of mostly businesses, including manufacturers, distributors, firearms retailers, shooting ranges, sportsmen’s organizations and publishers. It owns the Shooting Hunting and Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show, the largest of its type that draws nearly 70,000 people involved in the industry. Read on at this link….