Josh Sugarmann is touting the canard that the firearms industry is unregulated. We know for a fact just how much bunk that is. The fact is that firearms are regulated much the same way as other consumer products, like automobiles. In that there are regulatory parameters that manufacturers have to comply with, but within those parameters there’s the ability to make products that consumers want.
If you read carefully what Sugarmann is really saying, he’s lamenting that guns are largely legal, within the framework established by federal and sometimes state regulation. Presumably he’d want a framework more akin to how the FDA regulates drugs, with agency approval being required before sale to consumers, and with the regulating agency having a very large degree of control over how products are marketed.
Very few consumer products are regulated in this manner. In fact, I can think of only drugs, which aren’t really a consumer product since they require a prescription from a doctor, as the only products regulated according to Sugarmann’s proposed regime. Even the famous teddy bear example, that anti-gun groups always throw at us, are regulated in the same manner as firearms, in that manufacturers act within an established regulatory framework that only defines what you may not do, rather than requiring prior permission from the regulating agency to do anything.
But why lie and say guns are unregulated? That’s far from the truth. If you want an FDA like regulatory framework for guns, why not start with that discussion? Make the case for it. Again, the anti-gun folks aren’t talking to real people here. They are talking to a media that’s too busy trying to escape its own death spiral to pay much attention. The days of success through lying to the public is over. The real problem for the anti-gun folks, and why they have adopted these tactics to begin with, is that there’s no political support what Sugarmann proposes.