Here with Cheryl Todd at the 2016 Gun Rights Policy Conference Stephen where Stephen was awarded the “Journalist of the Year” award.

Stephen Gutowski is a staff writer for the Washington Free Beacon. He founded his own site as a junior in college and has been writing about news and politics since that time.

Stephen spent 4 years with the Media Research Center and was most recently with the Capitol City Project.

At the 2016 Gun Rights Policy Conference Stephen was awarded the “Journalist of the Year” award.

His email address is Gutowski@FreeBeacon.com. His twitter handle is @StephenGutowski.

Mr. Rathner is the president of the NFA Freedom Alliance an association dedicated to the owners, dealers and manufacturers of NFA weapons.

Mr. Rathner has served as a registered lobbyist at the federal level and in more than a dozen states. He is an avid hunter, shooter, and NFA owner.

A selection of Mr. Rathner’s most significant legislative accomplishments:

• Developed the concept of CLEO ‘Shall Certify’ legislation and worked to pass it in Arizona, Kansas and Utah.

• Drafted, filed, and worked to enact laws permitting hunting with suppressors, in at least four states.

• Represented the silencer industry in meetings with the BATFE, regarding the efile system, federal regulation 41P, and other issues.

• Served as one of the chief architects of Arizona’s Constitutional Carry law, which removed the requirement that a citizen obtain a license before carrying a gun for self-defense . Introduced, passed, and enacted Knife Law Preemption in seven states, thereby, repealing local knife laws and preventing new ones from being enacted.

• Strengthened and improved Arizona’s firearms preemption law, which repealed dozens of local gun control ordinances and prohibits new local ordinances from being enacted.

• Introduced, passed, and worked to enact Knife Law Preemption in seven states, thereby, repealing local knife laws and preventing new ones from being enacted.

• Successfully worked to repeal the ban on switchblade knives and knives exceeding an arbitrary length, in seven states

• Drafted and helped to enact numerous laws allowing shooters to utilize public and private lands and protecting public shooting ranges from closure.

• Assisted in the drafting and introduction of the Knife Owners Protection act, which is still pending before the United States Congress.

• Assisted in drafting national policies for the FAA and TSA to allow hunters to travel with firearms as checked baggage, in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy.

• Defeated various anti-Second Amendment proposals in numerous states.
• Has appeared on various programs on Fox News, National Public Radio, Huffpost Live, and many local television and radio outlets.

He is the President of the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), which is a research and education organization dedicated to providing an objective and accurate scientific evaluation of both the costs and benefits of gun ownership as well as policing activities.

Lott has held research or teaching positions at various academic institutions including the University of Chicago, Yale University, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Stanford University, and Rice University, and was the chief economist at the United States Sentencing Commission during 1988-1989. He holds a Ph.D. in economics from UCLA.

Nobel laureate Milton Friedman noted: “John Lott has few equals as a perceptive analyst of controversial public policy issues.”