About FPC

ABOUT FPC

Firearms Policy Coalition (firearmspolicy.org) is a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization founded on a philosophy of natural rights with an unambiguous Purpose, consistent Values, and clear Mission to fight for the People, liberty, and freedom. FPC’s efforts are focused on the right to keep and bear arms and adjacent issues including freedom of speech, due process, unlawful searches and seizures, separation of powers, asset forfeitures, privacy, encryption, and limited government. The FPC team are next-generation advocates working to achieve the Organization’s strategic objectives through litigation, research, scholarly publications, amicus briefing, legislative and regulatory action, grassroots activism, education, outreach, and other programs. FPC typically has members and supporters in all 50 U.S. States and the District of Columbia.

FPC Law (FPCLaw.org) is the nation’s first and largest public interest legal team focused on the right to keep and bear arms and the leader in the Second Amendment litigation and research space.

WHAT WE ARE FOR

Our Cause:

All people have natural rights and are inherently entitled to life, liberty, and property, all of which are necessary to human flourishing. Our just cause is to create a world of maximal liberty and freedom so that all of humanity has enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

Our Purpose:

End coercion that separates peaceable people from their life, liberty, and property.

Our Product:

Expanded freedom and an increasingly active, courageous, and confident culture that embraces and actively defends life, liberty, and property.

OUR CORE BELIEFS

We believe that the People’s access to and exercise of natural rights, including that to personal property, are necessary to achieve and maintain a free world. To that end:

• We believe that natural rights are not granted by governments, a byproduct of majority consensus or majoritarian process, or mere privileges conferred by any government, group, or creation of man. 
• We believe that natural rights include but are not limited to the rights to self-defense and use of just force against unjust force; acquiring, possessing, training with, carrying, and using arms for moral and just purposes; free speech; association; protest; privacy; due process; equal protection of the laws; private property; and free markets.
• We believe that how a government or society regulates the right to keep and bear arms is a strong and likely leading indicator of how that government or society does or will approach regulation of other natural rights and personal property.
• We believe that well-armed people make tyranny at scale significantly more costly.
• We believe that liberty is correlated with access to innovation and technology, including but not limited to that of arms, speech, and encryption.
• We believe that it is immoral to unjustly use force to take the life, liberty, or property of others.
• We believe that we must eliminate coercion and immoral laws, policies, regulations, customs, and enforcement practices in order to fulfill our Purpose.

OUR CURRENT MISSION

Objective:

Restore the essential right to keep and bear arms in the United States.

Key Tasks:

• Eliminate bans on the acquisition, possession, moral use, and disposition of firearms and parts necessary to an essential scope and capability of the right to keep and bear arms (i.e., fully featured semi-automatic firearms, magazines that hold more than 10 rounds).
• Eliminate prohibitions on the times, places, and manners of bearing arms in non-sensitive public places.
• Eliminate prohibitions on the personal manufacture of common categories of firearms.
• Eliminate prohibitions on access to and exercise of the right to keep and bear arms with respect to non-dangerous adults aged 18 and older.

End State:

All non-dangerous adults in the United States can freely exercise the essential scope and capabilities of the right to keep and bear arms without fear or risk of arrest, prosecution, or state persecution.

Target Achievement:

On or before Dec. 31, 2032, or as soon as achievable.

Definition of “Essential Right to Keep and Bear Arms”:

All non-violent adult legal residents and citizens of the United States can, without fear or risk of arrest, prosecution, or state persecution, (1) acquire, possess, self-manufacture, morally use, self-manufacture, and sell or transfer semi-automatic firearms and other common arms, and (2) bear leaded, operable firearms for self-defense and other moral purposes in non-sensitive public places.

Building Towards:

Our vision and expanded mission of restoring the full right to keep and bear arms and adjacent liberties in the United States and throughout the world.

OUR CURRENT AREAS OF OPERATION

Culture: Through the FPC Team of advocates --

1. Grow and support a nation-wide network of informed, vocal individuals who actively promote the philosophy of natural rights and work to eliminate laws and policies that limit or otherwise conflict with liberty;
2. Support policy changes consistent with the FPC Purpose and Mission;
3. Encourage the People to draw a hard line and reject government expansion and interference with the People’s rights and liberty.

Legal: Through FPC Law, the nation’s first and largest full-scope public interest legal team focused on the right to keep and bear arms and adjacent/interconnected rights --

1. Conduct strategic litigation, research, publication of scholarship, and file “friend of the court” briefings in order to invalidate and enjoin enforcement of unconstitutional laws;
2. Build precedent for future litigation strategies;
3. Create new opportunities for the People’s exercise of fundamental rights;
4. Shift approaches in judicial review towards a constitutionally consistent mode of scrutiny in support of the Mission;
5. Discourage legislators and executive branch officials from enacting and enforcing negative policies by using success to increase social acceptance of desired items/conduct, and thus impose new/higher political costs for undesired policies and practices.

Legislative/Regulatory Advocacy: Through FPC Advocacy --

1. Deploy grassroots activists and lobbyist liaisons in strategic campaigns and efforts to support the enactment of positive or essential policies (i.e., “constitutional carry”);
2. Fiercely oppose regulations that infringe on the right to keep and bear arms, freedom of speech, due process, privacy/encryption, and other key issue areas to reduce resource drain to new battle-spaces.

Our Ethic

Our Firearms Policy Ethic is the heart of our organization and shared identity. It guides and motivates our actions consistent with our core beliefs and values. 

We are honorable servants of the cause of liberty and human flourishing and faithful stewards of the people, resources, and liberties entrusted to our care. We are morally committed to our just cause. This duty requires a foundation of trust with the people we serve, reinforced as we contribute honorable service, expertise, and stewardship with courageous esprit de corps. 

Within our profession, we earn and sustain trust by demonstrating character, competence, and commitment to each other and the people we serve. We make right decisions and take right actions that are ethical, effective, and efficient.

Our Expectations

What We Expect Of All

Expectations of Character:

• Be honorable.
• Be humble.
• Be loyal.
• Be trustworthy.

Expectations of Conduct:

• Stay Aligned: Make decisions, actions, and work products consistent with our Core Beliefs and the Firearms Policy Ethic.
• Communicate: Communicate affirmatively and transparently without prompt.
• Duty: Fulfill the commander’s intent and other directives through faithful performance of duties, observance of fairness, and an absence of fraudulent or subversive intent.
• Teamwork: Respect and collaborate with others. Listen and show emotional intelligence. Think like a team, act like a team, win and lose like a team.
• Be Your Best: Have a positive attitude that shows you care and support the team.
• Decide and Move: Actively listen to others, gain information and feedback, and debate to find the best answer—then make a decision and move forward.
• Solve Problems: Improvise, adapt, and overcome. Find solutions and ways to achieve the goal, not reasons to avoid the challenge.
• Deliver: Consistently work hard, deliver positive results, and get things done on time.
• Improve: Learn from failures and mistakes. Intentionally increase knowledge, skills, and capabilities.
• Own it: Take ownership and responsibility for decisions, actions, and outcomes.

What We Additionally Expect of FPC Leaders

• Build Cohesive Teams Through Mutual Trust: Leaders must create a safe environment where people can be their best. Leaders must trust their subordinates to make decisions and carry out tasks independently. They must also trust their subordinates to provide honest feedback. Leaders should give trust freely but work and act to earn trust. Leaders shoulder the burden, risk, and responsibility of command. 
• Develop and Maintain Competence: Leaders should prioritize learning and development to enable their teams to improve and grow into more capable operators and leaders. Subordinates must be trained to an increasing level of knowledge, skill, and competence so they can make informed decisions and deliver results through disciplined initiative. Leaders should consistently use objective tools to measure competence and trends. Leaders should always invest in becoming a better, more capable leader themselves. They must also be able to explain their decisions and actions to their subordinates.
• Create Shared Understanding: Leaders and subordinates must have a shared understanding of the organization’s purpose, values, mission, situation, and each other’s roles. Leaders should communicate clearly and repetitively so that everyone has and maintains a shared understanding.
• Ensure Clarity: Leaders should set achievable, mission-aligned objectives with clear Commander’s Intent, but avoid telling staff how they should accomplish the work so that subordinates use their own creativity, initiative, and judgment to complete the objective and deliver the intended end-state. Leaders should over-communicate to ingrain clarity and reinforce purpose and intention. 
• Distribute Control: Distribute control throughout the organization rather than concentrating it in a small number of top leaders. Leaders should allow staff to make decisions and take ownership of their work, but tune the level of control to the individuals’ competence, level of shared understanding and clarity, and the leader’s experience with the individuals. Leaders don’t poach ownership and responsibility from those they have empowered.
• Create a Safe Environment Where Staff Can Act with Courage: Leadership is not about being in charge, it’s about taking care of those in our charge. To create an environment where staff feel safe to be their best leaders must be willing to accept risk and support their teams when things go wrong. Staff must be willing to take risks that may lead to failure and have the courage to seize opportunities that may lead to success. Leaders must create a culture that values learning from failures and mistakes. Leaders should engage with staff to drive the initiative and encourage their teams to take prudent risks and make decisions. 

FPC: All the rights. All the time.

#FightForward