Indiana gun maker offers Republican lawmakers customized AR-15 style rifles, half off
A southern Indiana gun maker made a special offer for Indiana's Republican legislators during the legislative session in which lawmakers were tackling significant gun-related legislation: a discounted, personalized, custom-made AR-15-style rifle.
Fostech Inc, a family-owned manufacturer in Seymour, Indiana, offered a limited edition of one of the company's Stealth rifles for about half the suggested retail price, according to a flyer shared with IndyStar, part of the Paste BN Network.
The company noted on the flyer made available to some lawmakers that it would only sell 110 rifles, which is the number of Republican representatives and senators in the Indiana General Assembly, and that there would be "no Democrat sales." Orders would include a "custom serial number" containing a lawmaker's district number, according to the flyer.
"In a show of support for our great Indiana legislators, Fostech, Inc. of Seymour, Indiana presents the Indiana legislator rifle!" the flyer reads.
Fostech declined to comment.
This offer doesn't necessarily violate the General Assembly's ethics rules. Of the two legislative chambers, only the Senate's ethics rules address gifts or discounts. The Senate standing rules leave it up to individual lawmakers' discretion as to whether accepting discounts would affect their "independent legislative judgment." The House's rules say that members should "avoid the appearance of impropriety," but notes that an appearance of impropriety is not a violation.
Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray, R-Martinsville, said he had not heard about or received the offer, but upon being informed about it by IndyStar, said he does not believe it would impact his members' votes, and he would leave it up to individuals to decide "whether it creates some conflict they’re not comfortable with." He noted that his caucus would be generally inclined to vote in favor of gun rights regardless.
"Obviously we’re a Second Amendment caucus, both the House and the Senate are, and we’ve been strong supporters of the Second Amendment for years," he said.
House Speaker Todd Huston, R-Fishers, did not respond to requests for comment through a spokesperson.
State Rep. Jim Lucas, R-Seymour, whose district includes Fostech, said he had no comment. State Sen. Eric Koch, also serving a district that includes the manufacturer, said he hadn't heard about the deal and wouldn't speculate on its appropriateness.
The company has taken an active interest in legislation at the Statehouse. Earlier in session, Fostech representatives testified in opposition to a bill changing the state's definition of "machine gun" to the federal definition, which outlaws conversion devices. These devices make guns fully automatic and thus more lethal, and their presence at crime scenes has skyrocketed, Indiana police say.
The two chambers approved the final bill by the beginning of April, with 28 Republicans across both chambers voting against it. Gov. Eric Holcomb signed the bill into law April 20.
Bray said he doesn't see such a flyer playing a role on senators' votes on that particular gun-control bill, either, as all but four Republican senators voted the bill through.
It's a high bar for legislators to violate Indiana's ethics rules, which are among the least stringent in the nation. The state ranks 44th on the Coalition For Integrity's States With Anti-Corruption Measures for Public Officials (S.W.A.M.P.) Index.
Regardless of what Indiana's rules say, ethicists say this rifle offer shows an attempt to curry favor with lawmakers and, consciously or subconsciously, affect the way they think about legislation affecting that business moving forward.
"I think people should be outraged," said Paul Helmke, director of the Civic Leader Center at Indiana University and a former Republican mayor of Fort Wayne. "It shows that clearly the gun lobby thinks they’ve got at least the legislative Republicans bought and paid for, and they wanna reward them. And I think it’s wrong."
Fostech opposed machine gun bill
House Bill 1365, authored by Democratic Rep. Mitch Gore, who is a captain with the Marion County Sheriff's Office, changed Indiana code to match federal law with respect to what constitutes a machine gun, which are illegal to make and possess without strict government oversight. That means state and local law enforcement can now prosecute crimes in which someone uses a conversion device to make a regular handgun into a machine gun, rather than needing to involve federal authorities.
Fostech, a family-owned manufacturer with about 35 employees, makes shotguns, AR-15-style rifles and trigger components, including a binary trigger called the Echo Trigger, which allows a rifle to release a bullet when one pulls the trigger and another bullet when one releases the trigger. Indiana lawmakers could add an Echo Trigger to their order for a price, the flyer states.
What makes a weapon or conversion device an illegal machine gun, according to the law, is if the weapon can shoot more than one bullet with a "single function of the trigger" without manual reloading.
Fostech's Mark Foster and Drew Markel opposed the bill during its first hearing before the House Judiciary committee in February, saying while they support the intent of the bill, they worry the technicalities of it could be misconstrued to impact the parts Fostech builds.
"There are a lot of new and technical products that are being developed in the firearms industry today," Markel said. "And it is moving fast."
On the House floor, Gore said the new state law does not encompass binary trigger devices, like the Fostech Echo. He said the new definition also has no bearing on bump stocks, the device used in the deadly Las Vegas mass shooting in 2017, which former President Donald Trump banned but federal courts have struck down.
Markel noted that what constitutes a "single function of the trigger" is still being argued on the federal level. Indeed, the federal government is suing Austin-based Rare Breed Firearms in civil court for selling a device the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives believes classifies as a machine gun because the ATF interprets "single function" to mean a "single pull" of the trigger.
Is it wrong or just part of doing business?
Ethicists say Fostech's rifle offer puts lawmakers in a compromised position. The question is, to what degree.
Influence is easy to wield and it happens all the time. Studies have found people are more susceptible to persuasion simply while they're eating a tasty snack.
"If peanuts and Pepsi can influence you, a discount on a relatively expensive product could influence you," said Jill Long Thompson, who represented Indiana in Congress as a Democrat in the 1990s and taught ethics at Indiana University.
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It would be highly unethical to accept such a gift that was not available to the broader public, she said, but she also believes the offer shouldn't have been allowed to see the light of day, even if no one took advantage, because of that potential to influence decision-making or priorities.
Helmke, a former CEO of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, notes an added layer to this particular gift attempt: Guns and Second Amendment rights are a politically divisive issue in a country with uniquely high levels of gun violence and mass shootings. The Republican party has for decades had a close relationship with gun rights organizations like the National Rifle Association, and an offer like this "makes the pocket all the deeper and more lucrative," he said.
Indianapolis hosted the NRA's annual convention this year, and state lawmakers invited lobbyists, including embattled NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre, onto the Senate floor on April 11 to present a resolution honoring the NRA and LaPierre's service to the organization. That comes despite allegations that LaPierre spent millions of the nonprofits' donations on personal vacations and luxuries.
Unless Republican leaders proactively denounce such offers, Helmke argues, a polarized public may simply see criticism from other sources as merely a political fight.
"A lot of folks I think just think, hey, no one’s gonna know, no one’s gonna care. Anybody makes a big deal out of it, it’ll turn all of a sudden into, 'We’re the gun rights crowd, this is just celebrating gun rights,'" he said. "That’s a disturbing message that we’re getting at. That’s why I think it’s important for the legislature and legislative leaders to say, 'We love ya, but don’t do this, this is not appropriate.'"
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Abraham Schwab, a philosophy professor who specializes in ethics at Purdue University Fort Wayne, said special interests are constantly throwing their support at lawmakers through things like campaign donations. These acts can create an unconscious debt in the minds of lawmakers, even if they are not meant as bribes related to a particular piece of legislation.
"We allow that kind of influence routinely," he said. "That’s just sort of the coin of our culture."
But that combined with the nature of the divisive subject matter at hand ― the proliferation of semi-automatic weapons and their use in so many mass shootings ― is what may make the offer feel "unseemly," he said.
Others disagree there's a problem.
State Rep. Craig Haggard, R-Mooresville, who served as the NRA's field representative for Indiana prior to being elected in 2022, said he couldn't confirm whether Fostech created a rifle offer for lawmakers, but he also said he wouldn't see the problem if they did.
"Because there’s really no favor to give," he said. "There’s no legislation for or against."
He added: "I vote against people that give me money all the time."
According to the flyer, the deadline for Republican lawmakers to place an order was May 26.
Contact IndyStar state government and politics reporter Kayla Dwyer at kdwyer@indystar.com or follow her on Twitter @kayla_dwyer17.