UPDATED: Westside Armory Responds to the Background Check Controversy

Last month, Bloomberg Business published a story after spending three days in Westside Armory. The owner, Cameron Hopkins, was a former gun journalist and he invited a friend, Paul Barrett, to observe what went on inside a real, Nevada gun store. The whole piece turned out to be nothing more than a thinly veiled push for the universal background check initiative. After the outrage in social media, Hopkins realized that Barrett had used their relationship to promote Michael Bloomberg’s anti-gun agenda. Hopkins admitted that he was not pleased with being taken advantage of someone he thought was a friend.

While we are sympathetic to Hopkins for being so blatantly used by a tool of America’s nanny, the apparent innocence that area gun dealers have shown when talking to the media about background checks is concerning. Three gun stores too many have made comments that, they claim, were taken out of context to support background checks. Gun owners and dealers need to be more careful speaking to the media on the topic. The Nevada gun community has demonstrated that it has little tolerance for those that would compromise on gun rights.

This was a big lesson that Hopkins learned firsthand. Several members of a grassroots gun rights group spoke with Hopkins at length and discussed the article and the initiative. 

Update 3/14/2016: Mr. Hopkins, in a relayed email, requested that we retract his article that he shared with some of our associates. Hopkins stated that the article "serves as a reminder that there was a problem. I’d rather let this wither on the vine, so I’d rather not remind people there was a problem." Mr. Hopkins has been invited to comment.