Beretta & Magpul ultimatums
Maryland and Colorado are taking legislative actions against guns and employers in those states are taking a stand against in favor of their prospective customers. In Maryland, Beretta, arguably one of the largest makers of handguns in the world, is being courted by neighboring Virginia and West Virginia says Fox News;
[Jeff Reh, a member of the Board of Directors for Beretta U.S.A. Corp.] testified that the nearly 500-year history of the Beretta family shows commitment to the community in which it locates its business. The state, however, isn’t reciprocating by advancing the gun-control bill, he said.
“Instead we are confronted with a state government that wants to ban our products at a time, by the way, when numerous other state governments are courting our investment,” Reh said in written testimony to a Senate panel. “It is worth noting that these states also do not try to blame a product for human misconduct.”
Personally, I’d pick West Virginia. Marylanders have been moving into Northern Virginia for years and the politicians that they elect there are not the friends of Beretta. West Virginia, on the other isn’t going anywhere on the political spectrum for several more decades, if not centuries. The banter between my classmates during our CCW class made even me uncomfortable.
In Colorado, Magpul, the maker of magazines mostly for AR-style rifles, made similar threats to leave the State and take it’s hundreds of jobs with them, says the Washington Times;
The company, started in an ex-Marine’s basement in 1999, is in a standoff with Colorado Democrats who want to restrict the size of ammunition magazines after mass shootings in a suburban Denver movie theater and a Connecticut elementary school. Magpul has issued lawmakers an ultimatum potentially worth millions: Pass the bill, and the business will move.
It’s a bold threat from a company that, by its founder’s admission, has distanced itself from politics.
My problem with Magpul is that they won’t sell their magazines from their own online store and instead tell customers to buy from retailers without telling us where those retailers are, and some of those retailers have jacked the price out of range of most of us. An item that we paid $18 for a few months ago, sells for around $50 now. Yeah, we’re being gouged.
And Magpul is conducting a “Boulder Airlift” making special sales to Colorado residents and leaving the rest of us out of it. Ya know, its their business and they can do what they want, but the rest of us who’ve been loyal customers want some Pmags, too.
But, it all boils down to whether the legislators of Maryland and Colorado care more about doing something that’s not even going to have a real effect on gun violence, or keeping their constituents employed. But, they’re politicians, so I’m guessing that they’re going to take the politically expedient choice – the one that makes them look good to the hippies in the media.
Category: Gun Grabbing Fascists
Beretta. Not bAretta. Beretta.
Magpul normally allows online direct orders, but since the gungrabbers have started their nonsense, they have closed orders to normal customers temporarily since they have been completely overwhelmed with dealer orders.
There are many, many more idle lefties in Maryland than there are Beretta employees. Then there’s the tax situation in Maryland–bad and worsening. So, Beretta can travel West on route 70 and take 340 right over the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers where they will be welcomed with open arms (so to speak) in West (By God) Virginia.
I’ve been pestering our state commerce and PR folkss, as well as Remington, to try and woo Remington out of New York State and up to Maine.
We’ve got a very business-friendly state now, access to plenty of energy as well as folks with a very good work ethic.
Besides, we’ve already got Bushmaster up here and it would be nice to Have Remington too.
Now if we could pull off the trifecta and get Colt out of Connecticut……. 🙂
I testified on Friday actually (1:30am Saturday) after waiting for 15 hours. It was great hearing Beretta’s testimony. Maryland is going to lose if they pass this UnConstitutional Gun Control Bill.
Smart gun companies will give serious consideration to the land of Barrett, Bowie, Jackson, and Houston: Tennessee.
Tennessee is not only a business and Citizen friendly state, but staunchly defends the 2nd Amendment, and maintains one of the lowest tax burdens of any on its people. (Average total tax burden/person: $1600/year versus 5-7x that in Northeast and left coast).
Personally, I think the town of Liberty would be the perfect place to open a firearms factory.
@4: As I recall, Colt actually threatened to move about a year or so ago to Florida when Connecticut was making noise about raising taxes again. The state backed down. They may be liberals but most of their government is smart enough not to go after a company that brings in tax dollars.
Oklahoma is better than West Virginia in terms of friendliness to all things Gun. West Virginia only elects Democrats, who hate guns. At best, West Virginia is schizophrenic.
@8. Whoa, there, big fella. That’s just flat-out false regarding gun friendliness. I’ll grudgingly grant that the two MIGHT BE equally gun friendly. But that’s because any discussion of Oklahoma as a relocation site for a gun maker can be dismissed with two words: tornado alley.
@9: what better way to make sure everyone gets cheap weapons than to have em thrown about 3-4 states…
“special sales to Colorado residents and leaving the rest of us out of it”
John, Colorado is in the midst of passing new bad (every sense of the word) gun laws that will, amongst other things, restrict magazine to a 15 cartridge limit. Magpul is trying to pump magazines locally as the good folks there will not be able to legally purchase them shortly.
There we have it: Liberty, TN is the perfect re-location site for firearms manufacturers. It’s located in the heart of a business friendly, citizen loving, 2nd Amendment protecting State full of Volunteers, where the mere mention of “income taxes” will get a politician retired. Capital investment costs are low, cost of living is low, the land is green, energy is cheap, and the people believe in hard work.
There is a low incidence of natural disasters, and chances are that if future employees don’t already own their products, its because the caliber is “too small.”
And what gun company would not want the motto: “Made in Liberty, for the protection of Liberty”
Those specializing in larger calibers might prefer looking a little South of Liberty, to Cannon County.
Jonn,
Quantico post exchange sells the P30 mags from Magpul for $19.99, they get a shipment in every 10 days or so. They limit 4 per customer per day, I go there with my wife and got eight in one day. Problem is they usually run out in 1-2 days, damn Marines and retirees in the area
[…] Ain’t Hell has a bunch of great posts up today but I like this one about the gun manufacturer statements by Jonn called “Beretta & Magpul […]
We just found out this morning that semi-automatic shotguns will most likely be banned under the mag limit bill:
http://denver.cbslocal.com/2013/03/01/popular-standard-shotgun-could-be-banned-under-proposed-bill/
Only the most popular hunting firearm in the entire state of Colorado.
As for PMAGs, try signing up for BlueCore’s emails, they’re local but also sell online. They get shipments in fairly regularly and the price is $21.99 for the windowed version. You’re limited to 2. The last time, inventory lasted about a day before selling out.
The only consolation is all of this is that Cheyenne is only about 1.5 hours away so we can go up there to buy magazines and long guns.
LWRC is also threatening to leave MD if the bill passes. Their Executive VP had some really good testimony.
On the PMAG thing, I’m glad they are pumping them into CO. I can wait. Also, one of their distributors was doing a fund promotion. They jacked up their price per mag to $40 a magazine or whatever, but put up a note saying that they had to charge what the market was calling for. But because they weren’t dicks they were only keeping their normal cut and donating the excess to the NRA.