One of the things that has always depressed me about the gun control battle is that the gun manufacturers are generally on the wrong side of it. Gunmakers sell guns to governments for the same reason Willie Sutton used to rob banks. That’s unlikely to change soon. Sure, we buy lots of guns. For gunmakers to support the activities of the organizations that want to make that stop seems counterintuitive on the surface. But governments buy lots and lots of guns, and price is no object, and they’re the ones with all the power. So Glock et al naturally want to snuggle up to them. The five most chilling words in the entire gun control debate are Military And Law Enforcement Only. Even if we were to lose it all, the big gunmakers would be just fine and they know it.
Which is why this, though a positive and necessary development, is probably futile.
LaRue got the ball rolling with their announcement that they would not be selling firearms to State and local governments that could not also be sold to the residents of that State. With Olympic Arms refusing to sell anything at all to any government agency in New York, I think we have the makings of a large-scale boycott.
I hope he’s right. But none of the companies currently on the list are big players.
Grass Roots North Carolina has petitioned SIG, Smith & Wesson, and Glock asking these three major companies to boycott sales to anti-gun states. The NYPD authorizes three handguns for duty use, made by these three companies.
I don’t want to sound as negative about the prospects of this as I actually am. But I’ll sit up and take notice when one of those three actually joins the list. It simply isn’t in their financial interest to do it, and none of them have shown any ideological inclination to do the right thing. Not that I’m aware of, anyway. Do please correct me if I’m wrong.
The really good news is that I’m usually wrong about things like this.
H/T to Weer’d.
The thing is that, no matter what happens in the political world, there will always be someone, somewhere able and willing to make guns. Even if it’s on the kitchen counter with their dandy new printer.
Don’t worry about those big boys. They’ve got plenty of real competition, and when the smoke clears, we’ll remember our friends.
Our enemies are NOT omnipotent. They may like to think they have the upper hand… but the truth is that they actually need us… and we don’t need them in the least. 🙂