CCRKBA is naming Jake Mc-Guigan, Director of GovernmentRelations for the National ShootingSports Foundation, Inc. (NSSF),as its Gun Rights Defender of theMonth for January.“Last fall, while participatingin a panel on federal affairs withJake during the Gun Rights PolicyConference (GRPC), I realized thathe had significant and comprehensiveinsight into and appreciationof the problems confronting themaintenance of Americans’ gunrights these days,” explained JohnM. Snyder, CCRKBA Public AffairsDirector. “Jake has a backgroundof professional experience in dealingwith various issues that serveshim and the Second Amendmentmovement well in addressing thedifficulties we face in the early 21stcentury. He’s putting that experienceto work for the preservationof gun rights and certainly deservesnomination for the Award.”At GRPC, Jake indicated thatNSSF looks forward to workingwith the different elements of thegun rights movement and outlinedsome of the ways NSSF is workingwith respect to the firearms industryat the federal level.“There is a major issue thatplagues our firearm and ammunitionmanufacturers that we currentlyare trying to rectify. This issueis the excise tax and the schedule bywhich our manufacturers have tomake payments. Currently, manymajor U.S. manufacturers are forcedto borrow money in order to maketimely biweekly excise tax payments.Typically, manufacturersmake the excise tax payments longbefore being paid by their customers.Our goal and that of the industryis to make changes to the schedule sothat the excise tax is paid quarterlysimilar to many other industries. Wehave been working very closely withour friends in Washington and currentlythere are two bills pending tomake the changes to the tax schedule.They are S. 632 and H.R. 510. Rep.Ron Kind (D-WI), the immediate pastco-chairman of the CongressionalSportsmen’s Caucus, introduced H.R.510 in the U.S. House of Representativesin 2009. The legislation wasco-sponsored by fellow immediatepast co-chair of the CongressionalSportsmen’s Caucus, Rep. Paul Ryan(R-WI).“Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), chairmanof the Senate Finance Committee,introduced a companion bill inthe U.S. Senate. Joining Sen. Baucusin introducing the bipartisan legislationwas Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID), thecurrent co-chair of the CongressionalSportsmen’s Caucus. We continueto add co-sponsors to H.R. 510 andS. 632. Hopefully, with the supportthis legislation is getting we finallywill be able to get this accomplished.”Born 1978 in Rochester, New York,Jake grew up in Massachusetts. He isa 2000 graduate of the University ofNotre Dame with a degree in finance.After his undergraduate educationhe moved to the suburbs of Philadelphiato work as a financial analystfor nearly four years. Following hisfinance career, McGuigan earned hisMBA from the University of Florida.Before joining NSSF in 2007, Jakeworked as a consultant to the packagingindustry on federal regulatorymatters and served as senior policyadvisor for Rhode Island’s GovernorDonald Carcieri, whom he describesas “a political conservative.”In discussing microstamping, Jakedescribes it as “a patented processthat laser engraves the firearm’smake, model and serial number onthe tip of the gun’s firing pin so that,in theory, it imprints the informationon discharged cartridge cases, but itdoes not work.“California now is faced withtrying to implement this patentedsole-sourced technology this monthin a very difficult budgetary environment.Law enforcement budgetsalready are under intense scrutinyand pressure, and this only willcause a greater negative impact withlittle affect on crime solving abilities.Since passage in California, there hasbeen even more evidence to supportexamining microstamping beforeany mandate. Publicly available,peer-reviewed studies conductedby independent research organizationsconclude that the technologydoes not function reliably and thatcriminals can remove the markingseasily in mere seconds.”McGuigan states that, “Not onlyare law enforcement organizationsstatewide questioning microstamping,but also the National ResourceCouncil, an arm of the national academies,published a report on ballisticsimaging which also touched on microstampingand recommended furtherin-depth study. The NRC said‘further studies are needed on thedurability of microstamping marksunder various firing conditions andtheir susceptibility to tampering,as well as on their cost impact formanufacturers and consumers.’“We believe that an in-depth federallyfunded study of microstampingis in order.”