There is tons of data about you flying around. Recently, I had some wack job find and tell me about the square footage of my house, my late father’s wife and kids, and a whole host of other personal information about me that I generally don’t talk about. It’s a scary damn world out there.
But people’s information is at the heart of a lawsuit taking issue with the National Shooting Sports Federation.
It seems the NSSF is being accused of some shady dealings by accumulating information from warranty cards that gun owners filled out and sent in to firearm manufacturers and then using it for political purposes; to increase voter turnout among gun owners. They’re being accused of this, now, in a lawsuit taking issue with the alleged practice.
Lee Williams over at The Gun Writer, which is part of the Second Amendment Foundation, wrote a bit about why the lawsuit is absolute BS.
According to the lawsuit Cocanour et al. v. National Shooting Sports Foundation, Inc., which was filed late last month, the NSSF—the trade association for the firearms industry—has “disregarded the privacy of firearms buyers by gathering their personal info into a database for political purposes.”
However, according to anyone with even the smallest shred of common sense, the NSSF did nothing wrong.
…
The traditional media celebrated the attorneys’ lawsuit with multiple stories. ProPublica even claimed the new lawsuit “closely mirrors the findings of a ProPublica investigation that detailed a decades-long secret program operated by the gun industry’s largest trade group.”
However, no one from the traditional media appears to have read the 24-page complaint. If they had, they might have realized this case will likely go nowhere, regardless of what it closely mirrors.
…
The lawsuit distills down the plaintiffs’ complaints into only one count: Unjust enrichment.
That’s it. That’s what this lawsuit is all about.
The lawsuit cites no law—federal, state or local—that says it is illegal or even wrong for the NSSF to receive warranty card information. It’s a totally normal marketing activity, which is not unique to the NSSF or the firearm industry. It’s the same thing a firm does whether it’s selling guns, toothpaste or lawn mowers.
He’s not wrong.
Look, I’m not thrilled about there being a database of gun owners anywhere. Data like that can be seized, thus making potential confiscation efforts that much easier.
However, Williams is right about how many other industries do the exact same thing. The plaintiffs argue that they weren’t paid for their personal information, but I’ve literally never been paid for my info. It’s been yoinked by every website account I’ve signed up for, then often sold to third parties that then sell it to others, all without anyone in any of those databases getting jack squat for it.
And while that might be part of the terms and conditions that no one reads, the truth of the matter is that this practice of using this kind of information and selling it is nothing new. Businesses have long sold their customer mailing lists to other entities.
In short, as Williams said, there’s nothing illegal about it.
We might not care for it, but that doesn’t mean a lawsuit is going to go anywhere.
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Read the full article here
