Payment Solutions for the Sporting Goods Industry

As the preferred payment provider of the NRA, Clearent can put faster growth and greater profits directly in your line of sight.

•Accept Mobile & Contactless Payments

Sell at a range or show with portable devices

•Offset or Eliminate Credit Card Fees. With cash discounts or other pricing programs

•Easily Manage Each Transaction

Gain insights with simple online reports

•Gain Access to Live Support Teams

Get answers quickly 7-days a week

Using the Empower Pricing Program, Clearent’s Sporting Goods customers save an average of $1,000 per month in credit card processing fees

"NRA Business Alliance members need look no further than Clearent for their payment processing needs. Clearent offers competitive pricing and top-notch services for those in the firearms industry. Our affiliate businesses can trust and rely on the Clearent brand to provide excellent service"

- Elizabeth Bush, Managing Director, NRA

Getting started is easy. Contact us today!

go.clearent.com/nra

STARTING AT $100 PER MONTH

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PRE-BUILT RETAIL POS AND

ECOMMERCE INTEGRATION

Every Orchid POSTM comes with plug and play connectivity to an easily customizable website. Your online store will list on-hand inventory as well as an endless aisle of products from the industry’s leading distributors.

Distributor Inventory

Increase sales and efficiency with pre-loaded distributor inventory catalogues

4473 & eBOUND

Eliminate paper 4473s with best-in-class digital storage and an integrated Orchid eBound Book.

Inventory Management

Our system dynamically manages your inventory. Track firearm serial numbers, set min / max levels and automatically replenish inventory with electronic POS.

Proud Partners

Firearm Instruction at Your Club Creates Unique Risks You Need to Mitigate

The following information is being sent to NRA members on behalf of Lockton Affinity, LLC, a licensed insurance producer. Any recommendation or advice provided is based upon the opinion of Lockton Affinity, LLC and not the NRA.

Talk to anyone about their club today and they’ll tell you that things are busy. We know, because for more than 22 years, Lockton Affinity Outdoor has been providing liability and property insurance solutions made just for clubs.

Over the years, we’ve received many questions from clubs about the unique risks they face — lead mitigation, homeowner–club disputes, general firearm safety and event and competition best practices.

Most recently, we’ve heard loud and clear that clubs are looking for advice about firearm instructors. Our hope is to help clubs like yours mitigate your risks by addressing the best practices for firearm instructors at a club.

To start, it’s important to understand that your club will have assumed liability for any firearm instruction happening at the club. Activities can vary.

They may involve instructors who are or are not club members instructing your club members, members of another organization (4-H for example) or other individuals who are not club members. Instruction may come from club members volunteering their time as well as professionals charging a fee.

The risks and best practices vary in different circumstances. Therefore, before going any further, have a conversation with your insurance agent. Find out exactly how your current general liability coverage will respond in the unfortunate event that a claim results from firearm instruction.

It may be that the coverage you have is sufficient for the activities happening at your club. But more likely, you may discover that you need additional specialized coverage to protect against your risks.

Firearm instruction liability coverage is one option that can provide protection for both premises liability as well as professional liability.

Premises liability protects against accidents that happen during the actual instruction, while professional liability provides protection for a club or instructor in instances where an injured party alleges or makes a claim of improper training.

For example, a person could attend a firearm instruction course and at some point in the future cause injury or damage to someone or something else and claim the instruction they received was faulty.

As a rule, most club general liability policies will provide coverage for premises liability for a club member instructor and club members or other groups being instructed at the club. However, most don’t include professional liability protection automatically, though you may be able to add it.

For example, if your club is interested in adding professional liability to the coverage you currently have with Lockton Affinity Outdoor, we can endorse that coverage on the current policy we have. A call to our team can get the process started for you. Again, please be sure to confirm your specific coverage with your insurance agent or customer service representative.

If your club allows members or non-members to use the club’s facilities to provide instruction to the public, this adds new risks you’ll have to protect against. Ask for proof of insurance from the instructor. They should have their own policy covering firearm instruction.

Have them add your organization as an “Additional Insured” on their policy and verify their proof of coverage by asking to see their certificate of insurance before allowing them to begin instructing.

When you have this safeguard in place, the instructor’s policy will respond first for any claim arising out of them using your facility to instruct. In the absence of this safeguard, you will be exposing your club to liability from a potential claim. Claims such as this are one large factor driving the cost and availability of insurance for clubs going forward.

To get the proper instructor coverage in place, clubs and instructors can visit NRAInstructors. org and follow the links to purchase Firearm Instructor Insurance from Lockton Affinity Outdoor. $1,000,000 of general liability and professional liability can be purchased for only $300 per year, before applicable taxes and/or fees, and is available in most states.

The Lockton Affinity Outdoor Insurance program is administered by Lockton Affinity, LLC d/b/a Lockton Affinity Insurance Brokers, LLC in California #0795478. Coverage is subject to actual policy terms and conditions. Policy benefits are the sole responsibility of the issuing insurance company. The National Rifle Association will receive a royalty fee for the licensing of its name and trademarks as part of the insurance program offered to the extent permitted by applicable law. Not available in all states.

A lot can go wrong at the club from property damage to third-party injuries, but Club insurance helps cover the costs if something does. Plus, Lockton Affinity Outdoor’s Club insurance is available to a variety of firearm-related clubs like:

Outdoor rifle and pistol ranges

Trap and skeet ranges

Hunting clubs

Leased hunting land

Landowner coverage and more

If you have your own range, meet at a range, participate in competitions and events, travel or own land, Lockton Affinity Outdoor has coverage for you. See what coverage will look like for your club by completing a quick, five-minute price indication at LocktonAffinityOutdoor.com.

An Adaptive Success Story

Our youngest son, Reed Kotalik, is a Star Scout with Troop 777. He will soon be 12 years old. Since he was a toddler, Reed looked forward to being a Boy Scout. His older brothers (including Rafe) are all Eagle Scouts, along with dad (John).

When Reed was 4 years old, he was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy (CP) after extensive medical intervention as a baby. He was born with laryngomalicia, lacking cartilage in his throat to keep it structurally sound. During his critical first year, his brain was deprived of oxygen as a result of this condition. Soon after his 1st birthday, specialists at Texas Children's performed surgery to create a functioning throat for Reed. Extensive feeding, speech, and other therapy followed.

We "lone scouted" Reed through Cub Scouts and Webelos because for years he had regular EEGs, cardiac monitoring, sleep studies, MRIs, therapy and invasive intervention. Reed realized (and embraced) through the years that most things would be a challenge for him and that rising to those occasions is necessary to have some sense of normalcy. Before his 5th birthday, we were offered (and declined) a handicap parking pass for him. Perseverence has become a way of life.

When Reed bridged from Webelos to Boy Scouts, we knew he would do his best, but we worried that he would be limited on some of the adventures that were possible (that his older brothers and dad have experienced).

Just last year, he was diagnosed with Cortical Visual Impairment (CVI) after his optical issues became more apparent. The area of his brain that is most impacted by Cerebral Palsy houses important vision function. CVI isn't an eye issue that can be corrected with glasses. It is a decreased visual response due to a neurological condition and involves disrupted messages between Reed's eyes and brain that interprets what he sees and then how his brain directs the reaction. Coupled with leg inversion and muscle weakness from CP, we knew that we would need to provide adequate support to keep Scouting fun and safe for him. While Rafe and John have committed themselves to that task, we knew that we would need others to "become a Scouting village" for Reed. As a family, we deeply value the importance of Scouts learning to work within patrols, troops, and with other adult leadership as part of their journey.

Reed has found ways to adapt in his other pursuits. In lacrosse, he uses the green field as a backdrop to scoop up the white blur of a ball. On the track, the white lines are thicker and skewed, so Reed works to stay in the thin color of the lanes. White is a difficult color for Reed to work with. It easily reflects light and casts an immediate glare for him. It shuts down critical visual response from his brain. We were confident that he would do his best to adapt in Scouting, but knew that support from other Scouters would be as valuable.

When we asked Reed (at the start of his Scouts BSA journey) what merit badges he wanted to take, he chose several that concerned us including the shooting sports ones. We knew that some of his selections had higher physical demands, but we were determined to give him the opportunities for those too. We respected that this was his journey and not our own.

Getting started with Shooting Sports:

Because John and Rafe were familiar with the qualification guidelines for shotgun, rifle, and archery, there was a concern that Reed may feel extremely defeated if he was unable to visualize the target and find a way to adapt to be successful.

We offered Reed the opportunity (through an invitation by Brian) to meet and work with Royce (in a smaller group setting) as an introduction to the Shooting Sports merit badges. We believe that provided a smooth and comfortable start for Reed. He enjoyed the small session of shotgun basics and a Hunter's Education course with his troop at a unit level camp.

As summer merit badge workshops became available last summer, we allowed Reed to register for rifle shooting. When he reported for class that day, he did not want to alert instructors as to his unique needs. We respected that he wanted to try and adapt on his own. He spent the first half of the day trying to qualify on the usual white-based target. As the afternoon continued, we could see that he was straining to visualize the targets and knew that type of strain usually results in further eye deterioration.

At that point, we shared information with Chip Locke and other shooting instructors for SHAC. They quickly began to explore a way to make a custom, adaptive target from their available materials that was blue-based (a shop towel) with orange round stickers. Reed (and we) were so touched that they found a solution to provide a target that was not on white paper. He qualified using the adaptive target and earned his first shooting sports merit badge that day!

Since that time, Reed has continued to work with the range's wonderfully supportive shooting sports staff. He has earned the Shotgun and Archery badges now. The orange clays worked well for him against a backdrop of the sky.

Our family deeply appreciates the ability provided to Reed to explore an adaptive solution that satisfied the same qualification standards so that he could find success with his peers.

Reed now has a passion for shooting sports. While he continues to work to qualify on the shooting badges, I am confident he will have continued support from his team. They are clearly setting a standard of being considerate and inclusive of those with various challenges.

Iowa is NO LONGER one of six states that do not recognize our precious Second Amendment rights in their constitutions. We’re no longer in the “I like to trample your civil rights” club consisting of California, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Minnesota. That all changed on November 8th, 2022. Two out of every three voters in Iowa SAID YES to freedom and liberty. It appears the Freedom Amendment (Iowa’s Right to Keep and Bear Arms Constitutional Amendment) was the highest-voted item, including all the races in the state this cycle, possibly, ever.

The Freedom Amendment is the culmination of over a decade of hard work. NRA and IFC have been partnered in this monumental endeavor from day one. We built the language together, worked through the tweaks together, and pushed this forward when others didn’t even bother to declare “for” or “against” on the resolutions for the Freedom Amendment as they passed through the Iowa General Assembly. It may sound odd, but many people show up to celebrate and take credit when there is a win. Too few roll up their sleeves and work the issue day and night on behalf of others. We’re proud to partner with NRA.

The Iowa Firearms Coalition, Iowa’s most effective gun-rights organization, has been hard at work for years to get this fixed! Amending Iowa’s Constitution was no easy task. The course was long and there are many hurdles and pitfalls along the way. But the “Freedom Amendment” is now Section 1A of Iowa’s Constitution, having met the requirement to pass in two consecutive General Assemblies and then be ratified by a majority of Iowa voters. Iowa will now be the 4th state in the nation to enjoy strict scrutiny-level protections for their Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

Congratulations Iowans, you did it!

The newest Amendment to Iowa’s Constitution, the Freedom Amendment, reads:

“The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. The sovereign state of Iowa affirms and recognizes this right to be a fundamental individual right. Any and all restrictions of this right shall be subject to strict scrutiny.”

The number of “thank yous” we owe is epic and we’re not sure we can do them all justice. But, the best start is to high-five your liberty-loving friends and family that supported Iowan’s civil rights and then hit our IFC Action Center to send the Legislature a thank you note for pushing the measure forth for Iowans to ratify with their votes.

1. Send a note from our IFC Action Center thanking legislators and setting the stage for future protections.

2. Join the Iowa Firearms Coalition and become not just a member but an active volunteer in the fight to preserve and maintain our God-given rights! IFC Membership

3. Consider donating to our sister organization, IFC-PAC, so we can continue to protect the right to keep and bear arms for Iowans of every color, sex, and creed. IFC-PAC Donation

Credit Card Company Seeks to “Discover” (and Report) Your Gun-Related Purchases

What’s in your wallet? If it’s a Discover credit card, be advised that it will soon be used to monitor your gun-related purchases and potentially report them to the government. Last month, Discover was the first major credit card issuer to announce that it will implement a new merchant category code (MCC) created to track purchases at gun stores with the express purpose of monitoring and reporting to authorities any activity the company considers “suspicious.” Discover told news outlet Reuters that it would begin its surveillances of gun shop purchases in April.

We have been reporting on development of the new MCC for some time now, including here, here, and here. Discover, however, was the first credit card company to publicly announce a timeframe for its implementation.

Noticeably absent from Discover’s statement was any explanation of how the company will determine which purchases are sufficiently “suspicious” to warrant reporting or what information, if any, customers will be provided when they have triggered an alert.

Use of the MCC can only inform a credit card company that a certain amount of money was spent at what is considered a firearm retailer. It cannot be used to track what was actually bought, much less determine why the purchase was made. Thus, the program inherently poses a risk to consumers of needlessly intrusive and harassing consequences for completely lawful and innocent conduct.

Assuming the program is administered in good faith (NOT a safe assumption, considering its activist origins), it’s doubtful a typical credit card executive has sufficient knowledge or experience with firearms and gun shops to have any concept of what is and is not within “normal” bounds. That would be like asking a plumber from Nebraska to judge whether a Wall Street financier spent a “reasonable” amount of money on cigars or in a luxury day spa at Lake Tahoe or Monaco.

As previously reported, state attorneys general and other state-level officials, as well as Republican members of the Senate Banking Committee to the Bank Policy Institute, have officially expressed their concerns about the program in letters to leading credit card issuers.

Credit cards can no longer be considered a mere convenience or luxury in the modern economy. Particularly when transacting online, they are all but a necessity. While gun owners may be able in the short term to modify their purchasing practices, or avoid companies like Discover that infringe on their privacy and rights, they shouldn’t have to fear scrutiny or harassment for their lawful – and especially their constitutionallyprotected – purchases. The NRA will continue to update this story and to work with its allies in industry and legislatures to protect firearm-related commerce from suppression by activists in and outside of government.