[Liberty4Ever]

The right to bear arms has been diminishing in the USA longer than I've been alive. It's a gradual process where rights are lost by attrition. Once lost, we almost never have an inalienable right restored. The persistent trend has been toward citizen disarmament. The unconstitutional infringements come in waves, and we're currently in a tsunami of gun hate. The president has enacted a bump stock ban by executive decree and green lighted the "take the guns first and worry about due process later" red flag gun confiscations. The opposition party is having a series of presidential debates and they're trying to best each other on how anti-gun they are. Corporations are virtue signaling their anti-gun credentials and those CEOs signed an open letter urging the US Senate to pass more anti-gun legislation including a national red flag confiscation. Not sure how that would work, even ignoring how blatantly unconstitutional it would be.

Until recently, it seemed that the firearms industry was stunned into silence, almost as if the anti-gun accusations were tantamount to a guilty verdict in the court of public opinion and any attempt at mounting a defense after the gavel was struck would only make them look more guilty. That's starting to change. We're seeing some of the more ideological companies speaking out to defend the right to keep and bear arms. Here's an excerpt from an email I received this evening from a large local gun store with a good online presence. It's a reference to the strongest boast yet from an American politician that they will be confiscating AR-15s and AK-47s, presumably with the others confiscated in prioritized order after that. The enthusiastic promise of gun confiscation was met with raucous applause during the debate, and the candidate's comment is now on a T-shirt being sold for $30 on the campaign website to raise money for the campaign. This culture war is heating up, quickly.

I should probably buy another couple of lowers.

 

[TxCajun]

NASCAR Bans Gun Ads

https://www.cnn.com/2019/09/13/politics/nascar-bans-gun-ads-souvenir-program/index.html

 

[Liberty4Ever]

The NFL runs Bloomberg's anti-gun ads, bans Daniel Defense's ad, and Bob Costas used the NFL Sunday Night Football forum to espouse his anti-gun views while the band played The Star Spangled Banner.

Where's all of this toxic masculinity I keep hearing about? It seems that the culture war is now being waged on the home front. The Visigoths of gun control are battering the gates.

I saw today that the Walmart corporate policy now refers to being a member of Bloomberg's anti-gun group.

https://corporate.walmart.com/policies

Walmart is a charter member of the Responsible Firearms Retailer Partnership, organized by Walmart and Everytown for Gun Safety.

Pop Quiz: The friend of your enemy is your ________.

 

[spence13e]

Somehow the world does not seem to be in such a lovely state.

My concern is very great, on many levels.

Conservative American needs prayers, many, many prayers.

 

[jonnin]

Its hard to say. There is a lot of garbage going on, like the banks and corps preventing ads & loans for political reasons. We need to take that to task with some lawsuits, all the way to the scotus. But if you look at that crooked, its a small # of influential leftists using a bully pulpit. It does not reflect a majority opinion. Take it seriously, yes. But don't let it get you down, just let it get you active. The biggest danger in this type of attack is that we don't fight back before it is too late.

 

[TxCajun]

Colt to cease AR production for the civilian marketplace.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/...market/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

 

[Liberty4Ever]

I'd seen the Colt news. Some people claim they're not competitive in the competitive civilian market because they're a union shop but most people believe they're not competitive because the company is poorly managed. Colt is playing this off as a business decision and not some hyper-partisan anti-gun thing, but if it's just business their announcement has lousy timing.

Either way, I wonder how many of their civilian customers will say, "I was saving for a Colt AR-15, but now that Colt has decided to only sell their ARs to the miliary and the police and not to deplorable serfs, I guess I'll buy a Colt revolver." I'm guessing not a lot.

After D ick's made the CEO country club virtue signaling decision to stop selling some guns and align themselves with the anti-gun crowd, they apparently made the calculation of the profit they'd lose by backing out of the firearms market where they weren't very competitive anyway, but they apparently didn't calculate the effects to sales in their other divisions. Suddenly, all of their customers that they threw under the anti-gun bus aren't buying camping equipment, equipment for their kids' PE classes, active wear, running shoes, etc. Colt may be about to learn the same lesson. They're already struggling financially, on the verge of bankruptcy. They've apparently lost most of their military contracts and are mostly down to selling Uncle Sam replacement parts. They just shot themselves in the foot for the civilian market.

Bye Felicia.

 

[spence13e]

I believe Colt has purely made a bad business choice at a bad time. All the "The Colt 6920 is the bestest, bestest AR on the market" followers over at m4carbine even speak of how poor their customer service is. I believe I'm soon due for a midlevel upgrade, and I really thought that was the next AR I wanted, however got to talking with the fella in a gun store last week. He has convinced me that at the price point, other AR's have the features I want, at a better price.

Colt seems to have a problem with being poorly managed more than anything. Kind of like GM...

 

[jonnin]

Its hard to armchair quarterback this stuff.
Could be that there are 1000000000000000000 AR15s for sale because the boom market / ban scare turned into a saturated bust market where we saw guns under $300 from reputable manufacturers. And colt is very *proud* of their stuff, charging a premium for the same thing everyone else has.

I can't see this as 100% political. But it could be 10% political … "we are not making any money here anyway, and it gets us some brownie points with more ppl in the govt who may give us another fat contract"... If you want contracts, you hedge your bets, and that may mean sleeping with the enemy when its handy.

/shrug.
We just don't have the info on profit margins to really know what % of this stuff is business decision and what % is political posturing.

 

[lklawson]

Colt's "civvie" AR's were over-priced, under-performing, and not as popular as many seem to think. Colt is struggling because of stupid management decisions such as thinking that they were going to survive solely on military contracts. They took too long to bring back the serpent revolvers and still have yet to bring back the one which should have been the first and should have been reintroduced in 2010/2011.

Everyone likes to rag on Remington for Freedom Group's supposed mismanagement but, frankly, Colt is being run far far worse.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[Greg B.]

After D ick's made the CEO country club virtue signaling decision to stop selling some guns and align themselves with the anti-gun crowd, they apparently made the calculation of the profit they'd lose by backing out of the firearms market where they weren't very competitive anyway, but they apparently didn't calculate the effects to sales in their other divisions. Suddenly, all of their customers that they threw under the anti-gun bus aren't buying camping equipment, equipment for their kids' PE classes, active wear, running shoes, etc.

There seems to be a misconception on gun forums that D ick' s Sporting Goods is struggling. They are not. The headlines all said their sales were off $150 million in 2019, but that is only about 1.7 % when sales are over $8.5 billion. And this was after a large increase from 2017 to 2018.
In their first two quarterly filings with the SEC this year both sales and profits are higher over the previous year.

 

[Liberty4Ever]

D ick's isn't in trouble the way Remington or Colt are in trouble, but they paid a heavy price for their anti-gun stance.

I have been overly reliant on stories from the pro-gun community, and there is some inherent bias in the reporting although I believe the overall message to be true.

https://dailycaller.com/2019/03/29/dicks-150-million-gun-sales

https://www.buckeyefirearms.org/anti-gun-dicks-sporting-goods-reports-deeper-expected-losses

I did what every good scientist should do. I sought raw data from unbiased sources to avoid the interpretations of others.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/DKS/dicks-sporting-goods/revenue

We can clearly see twelve years of steady revenue growth, followed by a significant tumble that coincides with D ick's February 2018 anti-gun announcements in the wake of the Parkland shooting. It could be coincidence. The raw data doesn't necessarily indicate cause, only correlation, but the overall sporting goods industry has sustained steady growth.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/DKS/dicks-sporting-goods/revenue

It therefore seems likely that whatever happened was something that D ick's did and not an industry trend, and by far the most prominent thing they did was their public virtue signaling that resulted in a widespread boycott by firearms owners.

It looks like D ick's is still the largest sporting goods retailer and they will probably recover from this misstep. After a year deep in the hole, they've returned to profitability. Like Walmart, their anti-gun policy apparently won't be their end (darn), but it certainly didn't help them... or their stock owners.

 

[Greg B.]

D ick's isn't in trouble the way Remington or Colt are in trouble, but they paid a heavy price for their anti-gun stance.

I have been overly reliant on stories from the pro-gun community, and there is some inherent bias in the reporting although I believe the overall message to be true.

https://dailycaller.com/2019/03/29/dicks-150-million-gun-sales

https://www.buckeyefirearms.org/anti-gun-dicks-sporting-goods-reports-deeper-expected-losses

I did what every good scientist should do. I sought raw data from unbiased sources to avoid the interpretations of others.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/DKS/dicks-sporting-goods/revenue

View attachment 44252
We can clearly see twelve years of steady revenue growth, followed by a significant tumble that coincides with D ick's February 2018 anti-gun announcements in the wake of the Parkland shooting. It could be coincidence. The raw data doesn't necessarily indicate cause, only correlation, but the overall sporting goods industry has sustained steady growth.

https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/DKS/dicks-sporting-goods/revenue

View attachment 44250


It therefore seems likely that whatever happened was something that D ick's did and not an industry trend, and by far the most prominent thing they did was their public virtue signaling that resulted in a widespread boycott by firearms owners.

It looks like D ick's is still the largest sporting goods retailer and they will probably recover from this misstep. After a year deep in the hole, they've returned to profitability. Like Walmart, their anti-gun policy apparently won't be their end (darn), but it certainly didn't help them... or their stock owners.

I just went by what they filed with the Security and Exchange Commission on their Form 10K, audited financial statements.

"After a year deep in the hole, they've returned to profitabilty"

See, that's not an accurate statement. Do you not know how to read the financial statements? Their profit for the last year was almost $320 million, down from a little over $323 million the year before.

I'm not defending Dicks' I've never graced their doors much less spent a dime with them. I bet you haven't either. So, I don't care what they sell or don't sell. But, if you are going to propogandize you need to get your facts straight.

 

[Liberty4Ever]

Do you not know how to read the financial statements? Their profit for the last year was almost $320 million, down from a little over $323 million the year before.

Yes, I can read a P&L. A lot can be hidden in a profit and loss statement. I posted a chart of their quarterly revenue statements because that's a far better indicator for our discussion. I posted the revenue data because I felt the P&L didn't tell an accurate story. A large corporation like D ick's can sell off assets or otherwise juggle the accounting to avoid posting a loss while they recover from a management error, but there's no hiding from the sharp decline in revenue that occurred immediately after they announced their anti-gun policies. Had that loss of revenue been sustained, eventually it would show up as a loss in profits, but the data indicates to me that D ick's cost themselves a lot of money and was forced to adapt much more than they anticipated to redirect their business in the anti-gun direction they charted.

I've heard and read a lot of comments from gun owners who have said that D ick's is dead to them. I have no reason to doubt them, because I haven't stepped into one of their stores since they went flagrantly anti-2A and I will happily go the rest of my life without patronizing their stores. I'll keep reminding people that D ick's doesn't respect the second amendment and hopefully more people will avoid shopping there. I'm just one guy and my reach is very limited, but there are millions of avid gun owners in the US and D ick's went out of their way to upset them. They'll be reaping those rewards for years. The cumulative effect is significant.

It's possible that some people who don't like the second amendment will change their buying patterns to support the corporation that's aligned with their beliefs, but these corporate actions usually result in much more of a negative response from the buying public than a positive response.

 

[Liberty4Ever]

Apparently good news for Colt. They got a big government contract so they'll be shipping their "evil assault weapon killing machines" to governments. This is from Tim at Military Arms Channel:

It appears that Colt is "suspending" the production of AR15's for civilian purchase due to having won nearly $42 million dollars in military and LEO contracts. A big chunk of that seems to be coming from the US Dept. of Defense for sales to countries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Oceania and the Caribbean.

In a different take on the same news, Rex isn't a fan of Colt's decision to arm governments and not American citizens.

 

[TxCajun]

Somewhere, I saw an article characterizing Colt's cessation of civilian sales as "for now." Could be they need their production for these military contracts. Could be they'll resume civilian sales at some point, or not.

 

[FLT]

Really when you cut through the smoke and mirrors, it’s always about the >> MONEY <<. As are most things in a mans life.

 

[fillyourhands]

Colt can do whatever they like, it doesn't bother me. There's only about 499 other companies manufacturing the same firearm. I won't miss them any more than I will Walmart's ammo.

If you are in the market for an AR, go buy a quality firearm from some other manufacturer that wants your business.

I own a Troy that runs like a top. It had a nice rail and a great trigger right out of the box.

 

[TxCajun]

https://www.tpr.org/post/colt-suspe...Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1568980524

 

[Liberty4Ever]

https://www.tpr.org/post/colt-suspe...Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1568980524

"Politically speaking, these weapons have come to be seen as sort of at the core of America's gun problem," he said.

The statement is true, when prefixed with the "politically speaking" modifier. From the basis of reality as opposed to politics, America has a problem with violence, not guns, and even to the extent that guns are singled out for vilification in America's violence problem, the issue is overwhelmingly inner city shootings that are almost always committed with handguns and typically as a result of gang violence related to the trade of illicit drugs. The street drugs are illegal. Murder is illegal. In the heavily gun controlled cities, being armed with a handgun is illegal. So we need to ban AR-15s and AK-47s in rural Kansas?

Hours after the statement was released, the Department of Defense announced that it had awarded Colt a $41.9 million contract to manufacture rifles for sales to militaries in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, Oceania and the Caribbean.

The subtleties of US foreign policy evade me, so I'm not clear on why my federal tax dollars are buying tons of AR-15s for other governments all over the world. It seems that my own government is trying to prevent me from buying an AR-15 with my own money while it's taking my money to buy AR-15s to sell/give to other governments. Am I missing something here?