Several top anti-gun leaders have seemingly conceded that they cannot get away with pushing bills to go door-to-door to round up all the guns. It doesn’t mean they don’t want to, it just means that they acknowledge there’s too much public acceptance of allowing people to own the firearms they legally purchased. So, their next goal is to end our ability to purchase the guns in the first place. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said, “The purpose [of her bill] is to dry up the supply of these weapons over time.”
We already know that Cerberus has essentially been forced to put Freedom Group up for sale due to threats from those in charge of investing California’s pension funds. Philadelphia is pulling its investments out of gun companies and investment funds that invest in gun companies unless they meet key conditions. What kinds of conditions? Gun companies must:
- Promote gun control, including new hurdles for lawful gun and ammunition purchasers;
- Give support (assuming financial since there’s no other that would make sense here) to cities to fund new record keeping options that would supposedly be used to share criminal records with NICS;
- Conduct a background check on every single firearm and ammunition transfer – all the way down the line;
- Stop producing their most popular products;
- Dedicate any research budget for new product development to so-called “smart” guns;
- Use any remaining product development budget to create an ammunition registry;
- Harass every customer at every sale about the history of firearms training;
- Redesign all existing products to include, at minimum, 4 serial numbers;
- Fund gun buyback programs; and
- Stop support of gun shows.
That’s just the highlights. Essentially, the demand from Philadelphia’s pension board is that gun companies should just shut themselves down before they can qualify for investments. Some of this stuff isn’t even possible given the distribution methods of the industry, but that isn’t stopping the big cities from making these demands.
Today’s headline is that Rahm Emmanuel is going after banks that allow gun manufacturers to do business with them, this is in addition to getting the city of Chicago to pull money out of gun companies and related funds.
They don’t just want a little gun control. They want to destroy the entire gun culture by making it so that even the law-abiding cannot easily find or buy firearms, and even if we pass them down, our children or grandchildren won’t have anywhere to turn to get them fixed or be able to buy new versions. Feinstein’s plan isn’t about drying up the supply of firearms. It’s about drying up the entire gun culture.
The entire bill of rights hinges on the 2nd amendment. The socialists MUST eliminate the guns or they cannot go any further in bringing this nation under complete socialism.
They are deadly serious about getting the guns, deadly. This is the real deal and it is our only chance to stand up to them. Join the NRA, SAF, etc. Get letters out to senators/house members/Governor/etc. Don’t forget to contact your county sheriff and let him or her know how you expect them to be in the forefront of protecting the county citizens from the tyranny that is coming.
But Bitter, don’t you see? They SUPPORT the second amendment!
My faith in humanity is at an all time low, but I hope that there are enough good people left in the country to keep us “defending” the second amendment so we don’t have to actually “invoke” the second amendment.
If anything, they’re giving my life a new purpose.
They must eliminate the gun culture to save their socialist republic. The possibility of rebellion is eliminated once all our guns are gone.
They realize that there may be a small rebellion caused by this, but it must get done before the bigger failure that looms in the future hits.
A rebellion based only on loss of gun rights is doomed to fail, to many people simply won’t participate. However once there is economic collapse (and there will be sooner rather than later), lord help them if any of us still have our firearms.
This is passing the point where even reasonable people can pretend it’s just a disagreement over policy
You mean Philly and Rahm are going to drive the stock prices so low that I can buy a viable company for the change in my pocket?
Hmmm, I’ll bet Philly’s pension fund is so underfunded this threat is a bit less dire than it thinks….
This is a great comment, and it certainly extends to Chicago and Illinois. I find it ironic and comical that possibly the only investment in the pension fund that is actually MAKING money is being divested in the name of their power grab.
Cheifjay is right, these city’s funds need that dividend check more than they will ever let on! The vast majority of public pensions are massively underfunded and forcing even union guys to eat concessions.
OK, if there are any gun owners in these places that are pension system members, they need to file a class-action lawsuit charging them with breaching their fiduciary duty by failing to invest in profitable companies.
Remember: if we only get rid of 0.01% of the guns each year, we’ll be free of the pesky things in what, 10,000 years? (If you are a liberal, and didn’t bother with those hard classes, “in what, 100 years?”)
I would need to find the paper that discussed the supply side problem of firearms. The premise was if you stopped production of all civilian firearm right now, that due to current supply and durability there are enough firearms to supply criminal and underground needs for at least the next two CENTURIES.
It also pointed out that if you cut off ammunition production, existing stocks would be used up within 3 YEARS, rendering those firearms useless.
A fact we are learning through market forces right now. Kind of can’t walk into a gun store right now and have ready, cheap and easy choices on common calibers.
So the opening attacks on ammunition are the true immediate threat. New York’s approach is a harbinger. By forcing ammunition sales to a background check, it has the effect of cutting off supply. So much so that companies halted shipping reloading components as well. That one requirement may well end the gun culture through a defacto ban on the ability to acquire ammo. I wonder how many reloaders in NY are royally pissed right now?
Long-term, I don’t see how a background check for ammunition can withstand scrutiny but at this point, I rule out nothing bad.
Clayton, all I have to say is that any gun and ammo company not moving to TX this year is run by fools. Move out of the jurisdictions and refuse to sell anything to their law enforcement.
Hey, Hey, HEY!
We got plenty of room in GA.
:)
I wonder how long it’ll take before someone notices that this government pension funds are deliberately ignoring profitable investments for non-mandated ideological reasons and sues them for breach of fiduciary duty?
Hopefully not long at all.
Since they’be gone something like 20 years now with financials ranging from questionable to obviously disastrous with no consequences for anyone, I don’t hold out much hope for a market correction here.
Fiduciary duty isn’t about the market delivering guaranteed returns, it’s about the LEGAL requirement to get the best returns the market will offer, and not passing up those returns because of personal ideology of the fiduciary.
Well, wouldn’t turnabout be fair play? Perhaps Smith & Wesson, Ruger, Colt, Glock, etc., should say we refuse to sell our products to the police departments of any city, state or other government entity taking such a stance with its pension funds. Ammo makers too.
I agree. If they restrict sales of the products or won’t invest because of the type of products, then refuse to sell to ANY government agency that wants them.
I don’t think the market works the way they think it does. The only way to impose those rules is to own a controlling interest in the stock. Then they impose those rules, thereby crashing the stock and losing their money.
If they pull their money from the companies, others will buy the stock at a discount and then reap the returns.
Cerberus, of course, is able to be influenced by one of their large investors. But note, they are selling the Freedom Group, not shutting down the companies. That means someone else will own these profitable companies.
Now, if the gun grabbers could raise the cash to buy these companies then shut them down and sell the stock and capital equipment as scrap, not as useful tools, then that could be a problem. But that means, dumping a whole lot of money as well as creating a lucrative business opportunity for some other manufacturer who would take up the product lines.
Cerberus, of course, is able to be influenced by one of their large investors. But note, they are selling the Freedom Group, not shutting down the companies. That means someone else will own these profitable companies.
Indeed. And their only real action was probably to put out the press release, the Freedom Group had already been for sale for a few years. Cerberus is a turnaround investment company like Bain, not a “buy and hold” one like Warren Buffet’s Berkshire Hathaway.
E.g. they got “Remington” to sell AR-10/15 pattern Evil Mossy Oak Rifles which are optimized for hunting but perfectly suited for self-defense, and I know people in my home area who bought them for just those tradeoffs. Remington Defense is in the process of taking the M4 contract from Colt (the latter is protesting vigorously and losing), heck, Remington even returned to the pistol market with a M1911 (is there any company not offering one? :-).
So I’d expect exactly nothing to happen other than what was already planned.
Ah, a side note on how investments like those in Cerberus work: you can be sure the California state pension fund(s) that have invested in the Freedom Arms vehicle has very little ability to make trouble with those investments, the contracts are not written to allow skittish investors to pull their money out any time they want. It’s almost certainly more a threat to not invest in future vehicles, but since Cerberus was already working to sell Freedom Arms it’s not like they can do anything more than they’re already doing.
I thought I had been hearing that Freedom Group was on the block for a while…
Remember when restraint of trade under color of law was a crime?
Welcome to the new progressive government-corporate axis.
Can we call them fascists yet?
Uh, just so you all know. Paypal has decided w/o any warning to change their “Acceptable Use Policy” to BAN the Sale of “Hi-Capacity Magazines” through their System. How do I know this? It HAPPENED FRIDAY TO MY BUDDY’S ONLINE MILSURP BUSINESS! I’ve posted the details over at Weer’d Beards Blog. But like a lot of small Mom and Pops who can’t afford to use a Credit Card Service for an Online Business, Paypal is the only way to do Internet Sales w/o waiting for the Money Order to arrive in the Mail. But they took it upon themselves to FREEZE ALL SALES UNTIL HE REMOVED THE ITEMS THAT ARE LEGAL FROM HIS SITE! He couldn’t even sell a Used Canteen Cup!
Now, Paypal is a Division of eBAY, and the guys who run eBAY are BIG SUPPORTERS of Obama. And just a couple of days ago, Biden came out and said he would like a Hi-Cap Ban BEFORE an AWB. Coincidence? Yeah, right.
So to do Business, he had to remove the Mags off his site. And with the amount of People who are Buying Magazines and Ammo and Firearms, this REALLY hurt his Future Sales. And this is NATIONWIDE, not just him.
Talk about Chicago Political Machine at Work. ” Youse sure got a Nice Website here. Hate to see what might happen to it if youse keep on selling AR Magazines. Youse might not be able to stay in Business!”
Like I said, check it out.
Oh, I doubt this is Chicago politics, eBay has always been political like this. E.g. GunBroker.com started up within weeks of eBay banning gun and parts sales, and as I recall doesn’t PayPal’s TOS ban using it for guns? This would just be an extension of that policy of discrimination.