Battle of the boycotts
This last week, a number of folks who are in the business of making and selling guns and accessories have decided to boycott sales all sales, including sales to LEOs in the states that are tightening their gun controls on their citizens. So far it’s LaRue Tactical, Olympic Arms, Extreme Firepower Inc, LLC, Templar Custom, York Arms, and USA Midway. Magpul Industries, a Colorado-based company that makes large-capacity magazines, threatened to move out of the state if they restricted citizens’ ability to purchase their products. So, Colorado legislators ignored the threat and passed a bill to limit magazines to 15-rounds – by three votes.
We talked about the gun range owner near Burlington, Vermont who forbade use of his privately-owned range by Burlington police when the city council made gun control noises.
Just this weekend, Prince George’s County’s Department of Parks and Recreation in Maryland decided that they’d ban gun shows on the county’s property;
“It is a temporary moratorium. We will revisit this,” says Anita Pesses with the agency’s Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission. “We are taking everybody’s opinions and actions into account.”
Pesses is promising the department will re-evaluate its decision after lawmakers in D.C. and Annapolis are done debating possible gun control bills.
“We felt that given the potential legislation on the state and the federal level, we are putting a hold on that activity for now until we can reassess after the legislative session.”
The move includes only shows that would take place on county-owned land and has led to the cancellation of at least one event.
The Silverado Gun Show was slated for the holiday weekend, but it has been scrapped.
Yeah, well, another route might have been to increase the number of gun shows while politicans throw a collective hissy fit, but it’s just easier in Blue Maryland to stop the trafficking of legal wares and hamstringing legitimate businessmen.
And, oh, by the way…remember when I was warning y’all that the government was buying up loads of ammo as a means of gun control, and someone kept telling us “no, they’re not!” Well, try buying any ammo today – even .22 ammo, which used to be about $.09/round, if you can find it, is going for $.42/round today.
Category: Guns
Couple of local ammo makers here in metro-ATL won’t even let you back-order and have shut down their contact page leaving a huge “we ain’t got none and don’t know when we will” notice. Sucks ass.
“It is a temporary moratorium. We will revisit this,”
Both of those statements are bald faced lies, but no political animal wants to admit that.
Ammoman, my favorite online supplier, is currently carrying plenty of .22 and .223 BLANKS. They’ve got .40SW JHP on hand for $390/500!!!
WTF, over.
A lot of this stuff is being exacerbated by people who are buying stuff up and then re-selling it at a significant mark-up. Just look at Gunbroker right now. Try getting large or small pistol primers or small rifle primers. They are available there, but they are selling for quite a bit more than the going rate. Same thing with 22 LR ammo. It’s available there, but you have to pay through the nose for it. It’s also happening with re-loading equipment. Check out what people are charging for a Lee Loader or rifle dies in .223 Remington on eBay. It’s ridiculous. Primers are the weak link though. You can get brass, you can get or cast bullets, and powder can still be had in some places, but primers are extremely scarce. What many folks also don’t know is that ATK won the bid for 450 million rounds of .40 Cal for Homeland Security. ATK has aerospace, defense and sporting divisions. The sporting division owns the following brands. Federal Premium, CCI, Speer Ammo, Speer Bullets, Fusion, Blazer, Estate Cartridge,RCBS, Blackhawk, Champion targets and shooting equipment, Gunslick Pro and Outers gun-care products, Weaver optics and mounting systems, Eagle Industries tactical accessories, the Force on Force training system, and Buck Commander and Duck Commander products.
Here’s the link to the article about the contract award: http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/atk-secures-40-caliber-ammunition-contract-with-department-of-homeland-security-us-immigration-and-customs-enforcement-dhs-ice-142304055.html
So when the corporate types have to decide which division gets scarce resources to meet production demands, who will get the nod? If the company receives pressure from the government over civilian ammo, who do you think they’ll listen to? Here’s the link to their corporate page: http://www.atk.com/
Just food for thought.
I would challenge the use of the word boycott in the traditional sense. The roles are reversed. Businesses are refusing service to customers. I say in the traditional sense of the word. A subtle but distinct difference with Randian influence.
Anyone notice the public poll on the side of the Denver Post article about the new laws?
“If Colorado passes legislation banning the possession of high-capacity gun magazines, should Colorado-based manufacturers of such magazines leave the state?
Yes. Let them carry through with their recent threats to leave. Colorado doesn’t need them here.
No. HB 1224 makes it clear they could still legally produce high-capacity magazines to sell elsewhere, and Colorado needs the jobs.
Unsure. I’m somewhere in the middle”
I guess my opinion, that it is a great idea to leave and Colorado will miss the revenue is not anti-2A enough for those idiots.
I would say the ammo shortage is caused at least as much by private citizens stockpiling, than by govt purchases.
My wife and I went through the .22 LR shortage drama last month. When I went to pick up my new Taurus Judge 3″ Magnum last month, my wife decided she wanted a gun while we were there. So on a whim, I had her hold and feel up a couple of .22’s that they just happened to have in stock. She settled on a Ruger SR-22 semi-auto. Nice little gun. A week later when we had time to go to the range I found my .45 Colt ammo just fine, but there was seemingly no .22 LR ammo left in existence in the state of Tennessee. It was crazy. We hit 8 different places, including 2 different Super Walmarts, Dick’s, Academy, Bass Pro Shop, and a handful of small shops before we finally found some. And even then they had a cap of 3 boxes per customer. I’ve never seen a shortage like that in my life.
Maryland will fold – it’s addicted to the taxes gained from sales, ownership, hunting use and so on. Milulski will have to force Reid to pass a budget in order to slip Maryland craploads of cash taken from working Texans.
Actually, the CO bills have only passed the House. They still have to get through the Senate and Hickenlooper, which I’m sure will happen since they are Dem-controlled as well.
If they think that ANY of us will register our weapons they think wrong and that’s the only way to enforce the universal registration.
It’s time to move to Wyoming!
Mark Levin has a more sinister take on this ammo shortage:
Maryland has been a blue tax-your-ass-to-death shithole for 40 years. You could plow the whole state underground and turn it into a giant park for dogs and cats to piss and shit on. It would be a vast improvement.
The western half of Maryland is fine. The cigar bar I go to in Cumberland is jam-packed with Conservatives. The range I go to near Flintstone is packed with veterans. I’m thinking of buying some property in WV near Maryland and build a range so they’ll have a place to store their soon-to-be illegal firearms and shoot them. And smoke cigars.
We just got our first dedicated gun store here in November. I hate Libtards.
@13, you go to Reds? See you there sometime.
Agree, the three western counties of Maryland should seceed and become part of WVa.
Get a few of these and start your own company.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCsUscgCDJ0
getting brass and primers might be an issue though.
Here’s a good source of brass, but you probably would need to get a group of folks to go in with you to spread out the cost.
(And likely involve a road trip)
http://www.govliquidation.com/auction/search?cmd=results&fromsearch=true&words=brass
Some of the shortage is due to people stocking up on ammo the same way people stock up on batteries, bottled water and other necessities (and food) ahead of a bad storm. Bass Pro Shop has plenty of turkey shot and shotgun shells, but the handgun ammo is out of stock online, ’cause you guys are creating a run on ammunition.
I’d just keep going after it.
Slings and arrows of outrageous fortune: still available. 😉
Every time I bring up the “gun control by cornering the ammo supply” topic on other gun forums, I get treated like a a 9/11 truther. They all say that the purchases are just an example of sound business practices, locking in low prices via volume discounts (as if the government has ever used sound business practices) or that the amount bought is consistent with the training needs of federal agencies over the life of the purchase contract (5 years). To me, the numbers just don’t add up. I don’t know if they are trying to crowd civilians out of the market or preparing for civil unrest or whatever else, but something seems unusual about these purchases.
Based on the math, these various Federal law enforcement types would have to burning through about 2500 rounds a year, per agent, in training…is that consistent with known familiarization schedules? I’m not sure. Maybe the better question would be, why are there so many fucking Federal law enforcement agents to begin with.
One more nugget to think about; hollowpoints for quals? Really?
@19: Yeah, the bs about needs for training is all smoke and mirrors, since the number of rounds used at the height of the Iraq/Afghan wars is approx. 5.5 million/month, which equals approx. 77 million/year. DHS has purchased 1.658 billion rounds over the last 10 months. Don’t tell me DHS shoots more in training than the US military in war.
Here’s something to compare their training needs to. What does DA PAM 350-38 have to say about how many rounds a Soldier needs to qualify per year? How does that stand up in comparison to what these agents are getting? There’s a comparison that certain folks probably don’t want to have get wide circulation. We all know there is a difference too in what the STRAC calls for and how many areas of the qualification the training calendar actually contains. I would say these round counts allow for considerably more training resources per person than most of our Soldiers get. If that’s what they are really for.
@Claymore-The FCI I work at has about 350 employees and us average Bureau of Prisons employees shoots about 60 rounds of 9mm, 30 rounds of 5.56mm and 4 shotgun rounds for qualification and familiarization. Our SORT team shoots about 4 times that per year plus some .308 (probably about 100 rounds or more) for qualification per year.
Now we also have Basic Prisoner Transport classes where an officer may get to shoot about 300 rounds of 9mm or more during that week of training. Its been a long time since I went through the course.