By virtue of most news accounts, the board of Cooper Firearms asked for and received the resignation of Dan Cooper. I do not believe the company, and in particular its several dozen employees, deserve to be punished for taking quick action to deal with anger from the community. As far as I am concerned, the issue is over. Our voices have been heard.
It might be true that Dan Cooper still owns stock in the company, and will still support Obama this election. Think about how many business you patronize on a regular basis. How many of those businesses have shareholders who donate money to anti-gun causes? I’m sure there are quite a few. I’m just not all that concerned if Cooper still holds a stake in the company. The problem with this whole thing was not that Dan Copper, the citizen, donated money to Obama and intended to vote for him. I might question his sanity, as a guy who makes his living making guns, for doing that, but that’s his right. The problem is that Dan Cooper spoke as a leader within the firearms community, as CEO of a firearms company, and in USA Today, gave a glowing endorsement of a candidate for President who’s spent most of his political career trying to destroy the Second Amendment. Cooper Firearms, the company, has done everything in their power to remedy this situation, and I’m going to come out and say they ought to be welcomed back into the community.
I fully agree.
Ditto. Well said.
Is anyone still pounding on them? I’ve not written my final say on this (I needed to see a head on a pike, remember?), but I’m not actively campaigning against the company any more. They’re damaged goods to me, but that’s not a big deal since I’m not in the market for a new rifle. If I ever do require a custom, they won’t be high on my list as a company to purchase from.
Heck, I’m looking for an excuse to buy and STI for the exact opposite reason (and I’ve never even held one before).
So, I try to support the companies who align with my best self interests and try to not support the ones who don’t. The larger the company, the more muddy it gets. I think Cooper’s Firearms did not react the best up front and since there’s no clarification on why they tried to lie, I’m not entirely comfortable saying I support them. But, they did try to do the right thing by publicly disagreeing with the very man who’s name they bear, and that counts for something – enough to no longer call for a boycott.
I wasn’t suggesting you were. I was speaking to readers in general.
sabastian,
Cooper Firearms would just like to say thanks. Because of you they have several new customers in me and several of my fellow hunters. Keep up the good work and I’ll keep spreading the word. Obama rocks.
Jim:
So as a hunter, how do you feel about Barack Obama being endorsed by the Humane Society of the United States, who are trying to eradicate hunting in North America?
After the company lied about cooper’s donations to McCain and the RNC I see no reason to believe them about Dan Cooper getting the boot. As such, I’m in no rush to welcome them back into the community. Cooper Arms is going to have to really go out of their way to regain a shred of credibility, and that is going to take a long while.
Jim:
As a hunter, how do you feel about Obama financially supporting organizations that propose banning bolt action rifles along with their ammunition and associated equipment like scopes?
Achmed:
We don’t know they lied about that. For all we know that’s the story Dan Cooper told them. Someone lied, but we don’t know who.
Let me get this straight, Jim.
You are an avid hunter. You were in the market for a new firearm, something that you know the guy you’d like to see elected would ban, but you had never heard of Cooper arms until us gun bloggers mentioned them. Now, much to your surprise, there’s a firearm company you can support and you’ll be telling all your friends, also avid hunters who’d never heard of them but all were in the market for custom wares. In fact, every last one of you were already looking at purchasing from other companies, but this actually switched your dollars to Cooper.
Pardon me if I don’t quite buy into that.
“I’m a hunter but…” is generally weasel speak for “Everything I know about guns came from my DVD collection and I don’t like them”.
Yeah, I was going to say that about the lie. I envision Dan lied to them, they believed it, they found out. Then it was the lie as much or more than the support for Obama that triggered the request for a resignation.
But that is a lot of speculation on my part.
Maybe Caleb will get some answers out of someone…
Like I said, they’re going to have to go the extra mile to regain any credibility. Sorry if that seems harsh, but that’s just the way things go. Since I don’t know who did the lying, I’m going to wait and see what the company does to restore their reputation before I welcome them back. Giving Dan Cooper the axe (assuming this has actually happened) is a start, now I’ll wait and see what else they do. As far as I’m concerned, they’re still tainted at this point.
Sorry Sebastian, but we DO know they lied about it. We have screen caps. We all saw the lie with our own eyes. And I don’t give a leaping rat’s ass who told them to put it up, it was put up under the Cooper Firearm’s logo.
You’re totally right we don’t know who lied, but until it’s cleared up, it’s totally under the umbrella of Cooper Firearms.
If I remember correctly. Cooper Arms is a privately owned, closed corporation. All stockholders are family members as best as I can determine. So what has happened is that the CEO has been replaced by a titular CEO from the same family.
Nothing has really changed except for the name on the CEO door.
Jim, I hope you and the “several new hunters” have a shitload of money to spend on Cooper’s firearms, to replace the monies that the thousands of us old hunters won’t spend on them.
To repeat something I said previously, they are *still* lying (or delusional, and for our purposes that is effectively as bad):
“We firmly believe Dan stands by the 2nd amendment.”
Indeed….
You have to stop at some point.
I don’t know how much stock, if any, Alexander Sturm’s sole heir (a grandaughter) still holds in Sturm Ruger, but she is a major financial supporter of radical leftist causes.
That doesn’t mean I’m going to boycott Ruger.
Ray Schoenke (of AHSA) is now wringing his hands about how mean we’ve been to Dan Cooper. Schoenke being Schoenke, he also managed to find a way to blame the NRA for it.
I’m in complete agreement. The board of directors has taken the appropriate action. Hopefully other firearms manufacturers will take note of this, and we won’t have a repeat.
I would like to say that my family and I have worked for years to get friendly gun bills passed and bad ones tossed out, with your donation to Hussein Obama a known anti gunner amongst other things, have undermined that work with the big check 0f $ 5,000.00 I will not purchase a Cooper firearm ever, the cooper clan knew exactly what donations were being made. publicly the company should denounce Mr. Coopre and Obama for what they are.
Cooper Arms has done what they can. I say welcome back. If Dan Cooper ever comes to his senses and repents then he could be welcomed back.
Now that Cooper Firearms has taken the appropriate course of action, I have absolutely no problems supporting them. Of course, I may not be able to do so for a while, but that is another matter entirely :).
“So what has happened is that the CEO has been replaced by a titular CEO from the same family.”
Just because they’re family doesn’t mean they are the same. Dan could well be the political black sheep of the family.
i’m all for exposing and excoriating the enemies within and was vocal and merciless re zumbo…
but to the extent that cooper as a company has taken the action available to them and continues to produce firearms, i agree the shooting community should call off the dogs…we can ill afford to lose a gun manufacturer in the USA; they face hurdles aplenty as it is (and surely more to come in the near term) without facing unjust injury from the people they serve.
jtc
Thanks to you, I will be a supporter of Cooper Firearms. Irresponsible people such as yourself ought not to show up in Montana spouting your ignorant single-issue rhetoric. Me and my guns will support Dan’s right to support anyone he chooses.
Me and my guns will support Dan’s right to support anyone he chooses.
And yet another person who refuses to realize that no one questions or opposes Cooper’s right to support the candidate of his choice–we are only exercising our right to not assist his efforts to do so with our money.
By the way:
Irresponsible people such as yourself ought not to show up in Montana spouting your ignorant single-issue rhetoric.
Is that a threat? I bet Sebastian is shaking.
Dear “punishing_bastard”,
Thanks to “concern trolls” such as yourself, I feel even better about my continued boycott of Cooper Firearms.
Regards,
Achmed