About
Daniel Terrill is the commerce editor at Task & Purpose, where he helps manage a team of staff writers and contributors that cover purpose-driven gear and services for purpose-driven people. He lives with his family in suburban Chicago.Â
Experience
After leaving the Marine Corps and graduating college, Daniel started his journalism career freelancing for newspapers and a TV station in Columbia, South Carolina. He got his break shortly after moving to Chicago when he landed a job at the emerging website Guns.com in 2010. There, he worked his way up from contractor to reviews editor and finally managing editor. Under his leadership, Guns.com became known as an objective source for gun news. The essence of his work was captured in a 2017 profile by the Chicago Tribune.
As a commerce reporter, Daniel has written about everything from new products and technology to personal injury and defamation lawsuits. He scooped the Smith & Wesson Shield and the new civilian version of the FBI’s Glock 17. He was one of the first to report performance issues with the innovative Kel-Tec Shotgun and later the solutions. He covered in-depth Sig Sauer’s drop-gun safety issue as well as their lawsuit against federal regulators, arguing whether or not a muzzle brake was a silencer (it was a silencer), and how a gun lubricant became synonymous with Crisco cooking oil.
In addition, Daniel has visited multiple facilities belonging to companies such as Glock, Smith & Wesson, Diamondback, Blackhawk, Serbu, and more. He’s also toured ATF headquarters and attended other events hosted by the federal agency. He asked Sen. Ted Cruz why he voted “no†on a popular universal background check bill, captured Ted Nugent’s infamous “sub-human mongrel†comment, talked to Gunny R. Lee Ermey about humor in guns and military life, and conducted one of the last media interviews with “American Sniper†Chris Kyle.
Education
Daniel has a bachelor’s degree in English with a minor in journalism from the University of South Carolina, a master’s in Creative Writing from Columbia College Chicago, and holds an state-police certification from the Police Training Institute at the University of Illinois.
