It looks like they are asking Dan Cooper to resign:
The employees, shareholders and board of directors of Cooper Firearms of Montana do not share the personal political views of Dan Cooper.
Although we all believe everyone has a right to vote and donate as they see fit, it has become apparent that the fallout may affect more than just Mr. Cooper. It may also affect the employees and the shareholders of Cooper Firearms.
The board of directors has asked Mr. Cooper to resign as President of Cooper Firearms of Montana, Inc.
Daily operations will continue with the competent staff currently in place in Stevensville, MT producing the finest, most accurate rifles money can buy.
Dan Cooper has spent all of his working life producing the highest quality rifles built here in the USA. He started with nothing but the American Dream and built that into firearms company anyone would be proud of. We firmly believe Dan stands by the 2nd amendment.
We wish him all of the best in his future pursuits.
So Dan has been asked by the board to resign from the company he himself founded. It’s sad that it has to come to things like this, but he’s supporting a candidate who would disarm us all if he could find a way. I might buy the notion that Dan Cooper believes in the Second Amendment, I just don’t think it’s very important to him. It can’t be if you’re voting for a candidate who spent much of his public life trying to destroy it. Cooper Firearms is doing the right thing here. If Dan Cooper does indeed step down, I think we should consider that a satisfactory resolution to this situation.
wow Wow WOW!
12 hrs after this first hits they fire the man that started the company. My favorite part is where they say “operations will continue with the competent staff currently in place.”
That’s gotta hurt.
They’re not in the clear yet. The company itself tried to lie its way out of this situation. For that, I’m a little less willing than others to simply say “Welcome Back”.
Also, Dan Cooper may not call the shots, but he is still going to make money off of each and every rifle sold. That money will eventually find its way into anti-gun politicians’ hands.
Although a custom rifle is not in the cards for many years to come, when it does, I guarantee you it will not be from Cooper.
If you read the current statement carefully you’ll note as Sebastian says they only asked, they never state they’ve received his resignation.
As Robb Allen indicates, we can be sure he has some stock in the company; there’s a good chance he has a lot, and if he and his allies control half, the board cannot enforce their request.
And on top of the lies noted by Robb from the previous statement, this one is on its face seriously suspect, e.g.:
“We firmly believe Dan stands by the 2nd amendment.”
If really they do, they’re delusional.
The company may have been posting what they were told by Dan, Robb. Do you have evidence that there was a company plot to lie about it? I wouldn’t be shocked if he told them a story to get them off his back for a while and then the truth came out. Notice that they pulled their original statement down this morning.
Seriously, let’s not just make stuff up without evidence. I don’t know that he lied to them, but you don’t know that the company was part of a plot to cover his ass.
We’ll see. We don’t really know the situation yet.
Sebastian, good job on the sleuthing. It is zumbo-gate 2.0!
Actually I do. It was the original disclaimer they put on the web site that said Dan had donated to McCain. That was a lie. Plot or no, it is what they did. Cooper’s reputation is tarnished, and that’s not me making something up out of whole cloth.
Now, I understand your point – Should the entire company suffer for the mistakes of the President? Being that he still will be getting a lot of money from the sales of rifles, I see no way to segregate the blame so that only Dan takes the heat.
Someone made a good point that even after his resignation he probably holds a significant chunk of stock in the company. I am not feeling up to lining the pockets of gun grabbers and those who support them. It’s a shame really, the man who built a career out of providing people with arms to exercise their 2nd amendment rights, is the same man who donates to those who will squash those rights. It is also a shame that he just may have destroyed the company.
Perhaps folks like him think they can do whatever they please and there will be no consequences from the consumer. He is wrong.
I saw an initial response by Cooper Arms while Googling only in the “cached” search. It was either taken down because they had been caught in a lie about donations to McCain or because it sounded so hokey. After doing a search on the FEC website and seeing only donations to Obama, I was satisfied in my mind that this company should go the way of the dodo bird. Sorry for the obviously very skilled craftspersons that will be caught up in this mess, but maybe Obama can spread the wealth to you. Good luck.
He does, but there’s not much that can really be done about that. Cooper the company which has employees and other shareholders, I don’t think can be held responsible for the actions of one shareholder. Lots of companies have lots of shareholders, and I don’t have time to worry that some of them might be donating money to anti-gun causes. From my point of view, Cooper Firearms the company is doing the right thing here.
I don’t believe that Dan Cooper’s political leanings come as an overnight shock to shareholders and employees of the company. Sort of like disavowing Rev. Wright after listening to his services for 20 years. If their concerns about Dan’s disregard for the 2nd Amendment had come before the USA Today article, I would have total sympathy for them, but as is, none.
With what information are you drawing that conclusion? I’ve worked in small companies all my life, and I can’t, in detail, tell you what my CEO’s political leanings are. They may very well have not known about Dan Cooper’s support of Obama.
Echoing Sebastian, I would suspect he kept his support of gun grabbing Democrats quiet in the company, it wouldn’t be too popular.
On the other hand, he wasn’t shy about making himself available to the press about his support for Obama LONG after everyone who cared to know knew Obama was the worst sort of gun grabber.
I would love nothing more than to be proven wrong in my thinking, but it will take exactly that, not just a few folks saying so nor Dan Cooper’s resignation. I can be accused of being a stubborn dumbass, but never of taking Second Amendment rights lightly or for granted. With DC’s resignation, how could I be sure that I still was not supporting his bankroll nor a politician trying to limit or remove these rights? This is just my quandry and I will have to come to terms ith it, but I’m not there yet.
I won’t be happy till he either sells or gives away any stock he owns and resigns his seat on the board if he still has one.
Why is anyone surprised by Cooper, Zumbo et al.?
Let’s face it, Cooper and Zumbo’s prime markets were (and are) “sport” hunters or “sport” target shooters. Much like the Brits, too many individuals in these communities tend to view guns as toys and their activity as a game. From their perspective, there is no contradiction between their ownership of firearms and their support for Obama. Such individuals would have no problem with a broad range of “common sense” gun control measures, with the implicit caveat that their particular “sport” would not be affected. That is: If laws against knives do not apply to “players” carrying swords at a Society for Creative Anachronism event, then laws against guns would not apply to “players” of “outdoor sports”.
This is how I grew to understand something that I observed just within the past month. A friend invited me to a private, outdoor range in northern VA. As he showed me about the property, we came upon the clay shooters doing their “sport”. Sure enough, parked in front of this clay shooting area were several vehicles with Obama ’08 bumper stickers. My first reaction, of course, was to comment to my friend, “These guys don’t see the irony, do they?” After thinking about it for a few days thereafter, it dawned on me that there was no irony to see: my assumptions did not apply. Since I don’t see firearms as “toys” and firearm use as a “game”, I see Obama as a threat to my rights as a gun owner. Clay shooters, outfitted with one-shot shotguns, wouldn’t care if Obama moved to ban “assault weapons” or handguns. Indeed, this would probably be a good thing, as their “sport” would become more dignified by shedding the unfortunate association with the assorted riff-raff who use firearms for such vulgar pursuits as defense of self and loved ones. (If you don’t believe me, try chatting up a British sport shooter and getting his views on the proper use of a firearm).
It’s amazing to me how many people are willing to draw detailed conclusions about people’s motives without having one shred of information as to what’s actually going on in the person’s mind. I honestly have no idea why Dan Cooper, as a gun manufacturer, thought voting for Obama was a good choice. I don’t know what his philosophy on guns is, and how he thought Obama related to them. And to be honest, I don’t care. My only concern is that Obama has a shitty record on guns, and a gun maker who claims to support the Second Amendment is voting for him. That was enough information to release the hounds. But I’m not going to speculate on what kind of gun guy Dan Cooper is. I don’t really know. I doubt many other people do either.
Once he resigns, what stocks he owns are irrelevant.
Are you planning on boycotting Dow Jones index stocks because leftist trust-fund kiddies might have some of their money there?
If he continues to run the company on the side, then that would be a different story.
Actually Kristopher, the stocks Mr. Cooper owns after he resigns are relevant. I, for one, don’t want to give business to a company that Mr. Cooper still benefits from financially. Vindictive? Perhaps… The guy is in the firearms business, and he supported the most anti-gun politician to ever have a shot at the presidency. As far as I’m concerned this is grounds for making the man a pariah.
Also, there are many, many other companies to choose from. Mr. Cooper soiled his company’s name. Sad but true.
I also await to find out if Mr. Cooper actually steps down. With only 38 employees, I have a feeling he’s not exactly outnumbered and can still maintain control.
Dan Cooper still owns stock in the company, and I would wager a large chunk of it. I won’t give money to Cooper firearms so that Dan Cooper can take the profits and donate them to anti-gun causes. This is self-defeating. Furthermore, the company has had several changing stories about the amount of the contributions, when they were made, supporting McCain, etc. I have another name for an untrue story that is intentionaly misrepresented as true, I call that a lie. I won’t deal with an untrustworthy company either.
When Dan Cooper no longer owns a sizable chunk of the company, and the company comes clean about their untrue stantments regarding this mess and they clearly say that he (or they lied) about this, then I will CONSIDER buying from them — but I probably won’t. I still won’t buy anything from Smith & Wesson.
To Cooper Firearms:
We are gun owners, we are Montanans and we are Obama supporters. Since you have made gun ownership a partisan issue, which it is not and never should have been, shame on you. We never asked you who you were voting for and it was not a factor for us. But now you have said point blank, that anyone who supports Senator Obama should not be associated with you – well, there goes a lot of business.
You still have a chance to stand up and show yourselves to be true Americans – in this land of FREE SPEECH! Yes, Dan Cooper had every right to do what he did and your silencing of him by forcing his resignation, is only the first step in taking individual rights away. So you see, by virtue of the fact that you did not allow your company President to be who he was, completely within his constitutional rights, you have done more harm than good to erode our constitutional rights. Shame on you!
We never asked your company who it supported for President but you allowed the opinions of a few to dictate your policies. Trust me, you will lose far more than you will gain by ousting the founder of your once fine company.
Your actions have shown us that your policies are anti-constitutional and in reality, anti gun-ownership because you do not protect our rights equally. You are willing to bow to political pressure and that means that you have no backbone and that you blow whichever way the political wind is blowing. Study history, read your economics lessons, your recent actions, in the end, will hurt your company more than Dan Cooper ever did! In fact, if anything, Dan Cooper better promoted the interests of gun owners and gun ownership than anything else you’ve done in recent weeks and months.
Sham on you for being political, weak and ultimately, anti-constitution.