A reader writes:
Dear Robert:
I saw your November 2, 2013 item “Guns & Ammo Supports Gun Control” on the internet. My first reaction was, “Yes, but why did it take him so long to recognize the truth?” We in the ammunition and firearms industry have provided the necessary help for the enemies of freedom to accomplish things that they never could have accomplished on their own. How many patriots know that the 1968 Gun Control Act was initiated, drafted and supported by the American firearms industry (SAAMI) as a mis-guided protectionist scheme? [Click here for documentation.] How many patriots know . . .
that the 1994 Assault Weapons and Extended Magazine bans were initiated and supported by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF & SAAMI)? How could anybody with a even a little knowledge of firearms believe that Senator Feinstein and her staff drafted the AWB? It was far too detailed and selective for anyone outside of the industry to daft.
The citizens seemed to miss the obvious that Ruger’s (long time SAAMI member) Mini-14 was not an “Assault Rifle” while Colt’s (not a SAAMI member at the time) AR-15 was, even though the two rifles functioned identically. It was a mis-guided protectionist scheme to protect the industry from the perceived economic danger imposed by the evil looking SKS’s and semi-auto clones of AK-47’s, plain and simply.
I saw, read and studied the draft of the AWB & EMB in 1989. It was being circulated within the ammunition and firearms industry by Bob Delfay of SAAMI to gain support for the measures prior to introduction in the Senate by Feinstein. It took another 5 years to complete, legislate and implement the bans.
Welcome aboard, albeit quite late.
P.S. Bill Ruger for all of his contributions to firearms design, was not one of our friends when it came to the 2nd Amendment. But that is another story.
If I boycotted every person and company that said something anti gun,anti freedom, or anti 2a I would be very board and would have never seen so many great movies tv and music
Give it a try, you might be suprised. We gave up cable and going out to the movies years ago and really haven’t missed it. Then again, we work full time and own a business on the side, so we really don’t have a lot of spare time to fill with tv or movies.
Although I might be being a little hypoctitical here, as two of the top 5 guns on my “to get” list are Rugers. But I was understanding (perhaps wrongly) that the current Rugers running the show were more pro 2A than Old Man Ruger.
Very much so. If you’ve got an extra 2 grand, pick up a SR556 or SR762.
pirate movies of enemies of freedom if you really want to watch them.
lol I’ve been doing this for years. People ask how I an live without cable and then I turn on one of the multiple 2TB external drives hooked up to my bigscreen and then they understand. Unless you are a slave to national tv news cable tv is useless and pointless.
whoops wrong place
@nieto,
There was so much stupid packed into your one “sentence” that I’ll just assume that you’re either a troll, or an idiot, or both.
He was making the observation that the overwhelming majority of entertainers are rabidly left-wing and support strict gun control. If you think he fabricated that just to troll us, I’m afraid you’ve a slight problem with denying reality.
Don’t get me wrong: The scumbags don’t deserve our support in any case, but you can’t seriously claim they don’t exist.
never mind….you missed it….i’m too board to explain it or punctuate it
If you’re trying to pull the “I’m too smart to respond intelligently” card, it might help your case to at least learn how to spell “bored.” It might help a lot, really.
@ Lucas,
Jesus yet another responder to me who missed Nieto’s original “I’m too smart for boycotts” attitude yet lays loose with a grammatical, spelling, and punctuation nightmare. Maybe I needed to put my “board” in quotes or use the sarc tag to make it even more obvious. This sub-thread is way beyond baked.
At the risk of bragging, I’ve known for some time that the enemy has been aided and abetted by our own.The 10 round magazine limit so strenuously advocated by the gun control Nazis was the brainchild of a gunmaker,after all.
And that is one of the reasons we’ve backslid so far from the legal ideal.Some of these sell outs genuinely think we can negotiate with terorists, ie gun control Nazis.Others are stuck in the year 1972 and think everything besides a Colt 1911 and Remington Model 60 should be banned.As disturbing as Metcalfs traitorous drivel is, too many gun owners in our wide nation think like he does.
We need to make sure folks in our own ranks understand that public support for anything less then an unfettered, uninfringed 2nd Amendment is comepletely unacceptable.Don’t give me that backtalk about felons or mentally ill having guns, because like it or not the government has no power to prevent anyone from getting a gun, despite the law.
Bravo, ST! You’ve nailed it.
I’ve said it before. Who heard of an individual civil right being defended by a segment of the manufacturing industry? Its as if MLK hadn’t been a rights leader, but the Motown record industry had been. Bizarro world. Sadly I don’t think the gun owning community (not just those that read TTAG, which is a very tiny minority of gun owners) will ever wake up.
This is disappointing to say the least.
Putting a historical and cultural lens to it…
I can see how companies in the past may have legitimized blocking higher capacity semi auto “fun guns” as their focus along with the needs of their customers were based around traditional bolt action hunting rifles.
However, with the rise of shooting sports based heavily around the AR-15 platform these days, and the fact that most young gun owners are not motivated by hunting needs but rather the weapons popularized in their video games I would say cultural tastes have shifted significantly.
With that in mind, I think bargaining away features of modern sporting rifles is a poor move for any manufacturer looking towards long term success.
“…the fact that most young gun owners are not motivated by hunting needs but rather the weapons popularized in their video games I would say cultural tastes have shifted significantly.”*
*Citation Needed
Not really. He is just stating the obvious. 90% of all gun owners I know just use them at the range and for carry purposes.
Isn’t it ironic how the antis vilify the ‘gun lobby’ and the NRA as the main forces undermining their disarmament efforts?
Yes, I was just going to say that. The antis are always demonizing the NRA as a gun industry lobby. Even though it isn’t, and the NRA has over 5 million individual members.
Meanwhile, gun control groups are largely driven one insane plutocrat. And Moms Demand Action can’t even seem to manage to get more than a dozen people in the same place at the same time.
The media likes to portray the issue as few gun nuts against a majority who only want common sense gun laws. Which is the opposite of true. Gun control is promoted by a tiny minority who want laws that make no sense at all.
Thing, my view is that they’re living in the past.
The past when all it took was sums of money with one comma invested in media memes that would use the power of demographic manipulation to create self-identifying, loyal marketing cohorts yielding returns with two or three commas.
http://www.cracked.com/article/116_5-facts-about-woodstock-hippies-dont-want-you-to-know/
What is largely unappreciated is that “kids today” are a bit more media savvy and cynical than Boomers were in their youths. They’re still open to manipulation–for sure–but it requires far more costly massaging on the front end.
The only reason ANY anti-gun policy is advancing is because the true believers occupy so many positions of power, not because the position is popular at the grass roots. For that reason alone, 2A 2.0 is the most important civil liberties and human rights issue in our republic: it is the nut that elites are desperate to crack to figure out how to foist their ideal utopia on humans who would need to be massively re-engineered to fit into it.
Yes! See the Clinton-Yeltsin agreement for more truth. There’s a reason why cheap Russian guns like the Makarov, SKS, SVT-40, and TT-33 aren’t imported; they would undercut US companies’ sales.
While I don’t condone such calculations, it’s pretty easy to understand why they took the capitulation and “compromise” route. In their mind, going along to get along equals continuing to sell product, and fighting the system ties up resources and threatens production. In a purely capitialist vaccum, it’s the only choice to make. Meanwhile, in real life, it establishes what is “acceptable” in restrictions with the industry’s blessing, and lays groundwork for future encroachments.
While I don’t condone selling the rights of this country for a few extra million in profits ( ruger and others in every industry) it makes more sense than for a writer whose opinion is swayed by the masses and risks the paychecks of all the employees of the publication.
Ask yourself when is the last time you EVER read ANYTHING critical about ANY firearm in Guns&Ammo or for that matter any of the gun mags.
Answer: NEVER.
Why?
It’s basically all a big game. The gun companies pay big bucks to fill these rags with their advertising. They wine, dine and give the gun magazine editors all kinds of free stuff and free weapons to test and evaluate.
Frankly, and I don’t mean this in any way as a self-serving remark, but the only actual objective/critical reviews we get from anyone these days are all of us who have YouTube channels and simply relate/report what we find and experience with any firearm we use.
Sometimes we love them and say why. Sometimes we hate them and say why. It’s ultimately up to the consumer to make wise choices.
A shame there is no “Consumer’s Report” type organization that deals with firearms and all related things.
I do hope this hurts Guns&Ammo badly, but I kind of doubt it. Their rags will still sit on grocery store shelves with colorful covers, insipid “articles” and so forth and people will buy them.
What your saying it no unique to guns. Every magazine works the same way. If you say something negative than it will scare off other companies and thus we really never get the truth from these magazines.
And, it is not just magazines. There are a few websites that do product reviews who never seem to have a bad thing to say.
The only product that seems to allow bashing of a bad product seems to be the digital camera and cell phone world probably because there is a 12 month cycle time so you get to quickly fix you mistakes.
Exactly.
I’ve been saying this for years: “If you read anything in G&A that remotely resembles the truth, it is because of an accidental convergence between the truth and their advertising agenda, not as a result of any honesty on the part of G&A.”
Agree. It is worth noting that it isn’t chance that advertisers are never offended. Guns & Ammo, like Hot Rod and Motor Trend, was actually created by Robert Petersen specifically to fill an advertising/publicist void, not to fill a hobbyist’s desire for more and more accurate information. The magazine only had to be flashy enough to get guys to pick it up and pay for it. Guns & Ammo effectively created the “Assault Weapon” label for AR-style guns because….it got guys to pick up the magazine and pay for it.
The way it has to be played – not one step back. There have been too many inroads at too many places already. No more complacency, no more trade off’s, no more accommodations weakening the protection of the 2nd Amendment. There has already been too much given away for naught and compromise smacks of weakness on our part which will be exploited by the grabbers.
Our collective effort must be to vigorously push back and reclaim lost ground wherever it can be done. The opportunistic traitors in the gun industry and those among our misguided followers have done too much damage already.
THIS! Every fence sitter, apologist, and complacent gun owner is part of the problem. If every gun owner in America became a single issue voter for one election cycle, we could roll all the restrictions back for 50 years. Instead we have all these hand sitters who say, “What’s the big deal?” How many gun owners failed to vote? How many chose their candidate overlooking their obvious anti-gun sentiment because the pro Second Amendment candidate failed some other test of ideological purity? What is needed is a recognition that we are in a fight for our lives and our freedoms. Gun rights are just the tip of the spear. If they can regulate them out of existence, then the rest of our rights will follow. We need a sense of outrage at ANY attempt to regulate our inherent right to self defense and an armed citizenry. Guns and Ammo have not even felt the need to respond at this point. More anger, more shouting, more fighting, please. Don’t blow this betrayal off as business as usual. THAT is how they are killing us – with the death of a thousand cuts.
I hear you, and wait patiently to see what happens in the VA governors race. I suspect that the fence sitters and Fudds and high moral types will help the election go the wrong way. Ditto for many other elections that will be happening tomorrow. There will be many whom will be happy to be keyboard commandos and will never vote but will happily come onto the forums the following day to complain with and endless supply of excuses of they did not vote or voted for the 3rd party candidate who received 5% of the vote which could have over turned the gun grabber that goes into office.
Bill Ruger is dead. Ruger as of late has been a support of our rights.
Also keep in mind that G&A has a larger network of magazines, all the same thing: glitzy, colorful, fan boy, every gun is wonderful, etc.
Just FYI.
Just because someone says they are for gun rights does not mean they are. The misguided think the right to bear shall be regulated to death. Unfortunately many of those gun rights groups have been filing lawsuits and convincing people that the right should be regulated. They have even went so far as to file briefs in court against those who believe a right should not be licensed.
What really worries me is that there will always be those in a position of power that don’t learn from our mistakes and believe that compromise is necessary. Just look at Alan Gottlieb and Manchin-Toomey. There will also always be someone who has something to gain financially from the compromsie. Each generation has to really understand what has happened in the past to prevent it from occuring again or it will ultiimately result in the incremental loss of our freedoms.
Semper Vigilans
What does the NRA gain by the licensing a right to carry? Well, accepted forms of training are NRA approved…more money for the NRA.
I’m an NRA certified trainer. Neither trainers nor the NRA are getting rich off of instruction. I invested over $5000.00 for training materials before I ever taught my first class. How long will it take me to earn that back? And each student costs me about $170.00 in fixed costs per the 16 hour class mandated by IL. You think I’m getting rich here? The only monies the NRA takes in per class is the training materials. Each student packet costs me $11.00. Considering the quantity and quality of the materials, I’m quite sure their income from this source is minimal. I’m really, really weary of the persistent attitude expressed by many that trainers are somehow preying upon their fellow gun owners in pursuit of some easy money, get rich quick scheme. Often it is helpful if you have some vague idea what you’re talking about before you post.
Lenin said it best: “The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.” The firearms industry has been selling the rope for generations.
They are not anti-2A. They’re just pro-$. Bill Ruger and S&W’s British former owners abased themselves at the feet of Bill Clinton because they felt that it was in their best financial interest to do so.
We, the POTG, almost put S&W out of business, slashing sales by 40% and the value of the company by 90%. When Saf-T-Hammer purchased S&W from the Brits, it rejected the Agreement of 2000.
The Clinton-era boycott of S&W was so powerful that Slick Willie brought an antitrust investigation against us! It would not surprise me if there was a handshake agreement between the DOJ and S&W to launch the “investigation” as a way of breaking the boycott. Clinton dropped the case in 2003. I guess that he was more concerned with boning his interns.
“Clinton dropped the case in 2003.”
Really? Three years into Bush’s presidency? Fancy that.
It might amuse you to realize that the current owner of Guns & Ammo is Source Interlink group, controlled by none other than Ron Burkle, Bill Clinton’s good friend and occasional patron. (Unless there has been a private sale by Interlink of which I am unaware…)
…which makes me wonder if Metcalf et al haven’t received some editorial guidance from, uh, Head Quarters.
Lenin said NOTHING that matters. Ever.
Who won the war between the commies and the West? (before Clinton surrendered).
NRA and Reagan supported the Hughes amendment to FOPA 86.
No, they did not.
The NRA in fact backed a court challenge to it. Cf. US v. Farmer.
The Hughes amendment was “passed” because Rangel said it was. Not because it passed an actual vote. Yes, the NRA decided not to kill the whole bill over a few amendments. They opposed the amendments, but stood aside for the sake of the whole. But this last amendment was railroaded in last minute. And remember, was very vaguely worded. It wasn’t clear what it did.
Reagan did sign it. That I will grant you.
A quick google search shows this article and this news has spread through the online firearms community rather rapidly, I’m surprised Guns and Ammo hasn’t issued a statement yet.
Well it does seem that after 90 years of screwing us over, the industry by large has stopped helping the antis. Ruger certainly changed, as even S&W has.
Misguided support of gun control has been very harmful. In California, the first gun control bill* (AB 263-1924) that established the DROS, handgun registration, 1 day rating period, and the restriction on concealed carry except for at home, business or outings** or with a may issue license etc was also passed in North Dakota and New Hampshire, and almost on a federal level. It came from some “Model Penal Code” of Progressives. And was fully backed by the firearm industry. As was stated by the Senator that introduced it federally, ” “It is frankly, an effort upon the part of those who know something about firearms to forestall the flood of fanatical legislation intended to deprive all citizens of the United States of the right to own and use, for legitimate purposes, firearms capable of being concealed upon the person”
They saw fanatics and responded by encouraging them, tossing a bone. In 1927 the Federal gov outlawed mail order handguns. In 1934 the NFA. The NRA helped draft that, to mixed effect. Positive side, the NFA would have included handguns but the NRA got them to remove it. The negative, supporting it at all.
Whether it was misguided compromises, thinking you could forestall worse, or manipulating the game in protectionist ways (and that starts to make sense of the bizarre handgun importing rules), I think at this point most of the industry has learned that was stupid.
Two addenda
*Actually the first CA gun control bill was AB 80, in 1854. It banned the sale of guns or ammo to Indians. It was part of an explicitly genocidal policy. The governor said we had to exterminate them all.
**Hence the odd rule that in CA you can CCW without a permit while fishing (cannot be loaded thanks to Reagan in 1967)
Actually, loaded concealed carry while hunting or fishing is legal in CA. The law is a little vague on “traveling to or from hunting/fishing” so it’s best not to actually carry until you exit your vehicle, but other than that, hunting/fishing license == CCW license while hunting/fishing.
I can post citations if needed, but Google will quickly return good results on this.
Minime, not according to Calguns or the text of the laws I have read. Loaded and open, or unloaded and concealed, is what I have seen. “California Gun Laws – A Guide to State and Federal Firearm Regulations” says the same thing. Exceptions for loaded are not the same as exceptions for concealed.
I could be wrong, but this is my understanding. IANAL
Check out “Gun-Tests.com” magazine. No advertising and honest reviews.
I’ve been an avid reader and collector for more than ten years.
http://www.gun-tests.com/
So, how many of yall have Guns n Ammo subs, or subs to its related family of advertising-based for-profit GC-sympathetic glossies?
Like Paul, I prefer Gun Tests. Or just going to the range with friends and relations and their arms.
YouTube is great for gun reviews, shop tips, and range tests, but Mountain View (Google) greps and stores views of RKBA-related content. Now that that is cross referenced to other Google products, like Gmail, one must choose between being out about one’s Constitutional proclivities or avoiding the topic/Google/etc. altogether and sticking to realtime.
Bill Ruger made a mistake in kowtowing to the antis. He kept his mini-14 off the banned list, but people always want what they can’t have. America went from a mini-14 country to an AR country.
Well…
Just recently a noted gunwriter “mentioned a problem” in a review of a reintroduction of a classic single action. It seems the sample revolver had oversize cylinder throats of .456″ or larger which caused accuracy problems with the properly dimensioned barrel. This review “damned” the revolver with “faint praise”, noting how reasonable accuracy could be achieved only with the soft lead hollow base .45 Colt ammuniton from the oldest two ammunition manufacturers.
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