House panel says gunmakers earned more than $1B from sales of assault weapons

Major gun manufacturers earned more than $1 billion from sales of military-style assault weapons to American civilians in the last decade, the House Oversight and Reform Committee said in a report Wednesday.

The report was released shortly before a scheduled hearing on gun violence and the firearms industry.

“These companies are selling the weapon of choice for mass murderers who terrorize young children at school, hunt down worshippers at churches and synagogues, and slaughter families on the Fourth of July. In short, the gun industry is profiting off the blood of innocent Americans,” committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) said in a statement Wednesday.

Hundreds of thousands of military-style assault weapons are purchased each year, the committee report found. 

The investigation, spurred on by recent mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, N.Y., focused on five major U.S. manufacturers whose semi-automatic weapons have been used in such attacks: Bushmaster, Daniel Defense, Sig Sauer, Smith & Wesson, and Sturm, Ruger & Company.

The lawmakers blamed gun manufacturers for “manipulative marketing campaigns” to entice buyers, young men in particular, with advertisements modeled after popular video games and promises that the weapon will elevate users to special-ops levels. 

“Materials obtained by the Committee show how sellers tout assault rifles’ military pedigree, make covert references to violent white supremacists like the Boogaloo Boys, and prey on young men’s insecurities by claiming their weapons will put them ‘at the top of the testosterone food chain,’” the report reads.

Maloney called these marketing tactics “deeply disturbing, exploitative, and reckless.”

The committee also said the manufacturers don’t track deaths, injuries or crimes related to gun use and “were unable to produce any internal analyses of the dangers caused by selling their military-style weapons to civilians.”

The House is set to vote this week on the Assault Weapons Ban of 2021 after it passed the House Judiciary Committee in a 25-18 vote.

The CEOs of Daniel Defense and Sturm, Ruger & Company will testify before the committee Wednesday. The CEO of Smith & Wesson was invited, but isn’t slated to attend. They’ll be joined by senior counsel from the nonprofit Brady: United Against Gun Violence and a senior adviser from the Giffords Law Center.