Firearms Debate: Meet The Gunmakers USATODAY 7:39 a.m. EST February 27, 2013 Excerpts: U.S. gun and ammunition makers generated an estimated $12 billion in revenue last year, surging from about $9 billion in 2007. The industry's national economic impact is dramatic, employing nearly 100,000 people and providing $4 billion in wages. Demand for firearms varies year over year, often affected by political forces. NEW BRITAIN, Conn. The boyish face could easily belong to one in the legion of young accountants or junior insurance executives who toil in the corporate corridors of the nearby state capital. There is barely a clue to his actual line of work until Mark Malkowski opens the door to a busy backroom in an unmarked building. There, in a snowbound industrial park on the edge of town, about a dozen people are now clocking 12-hour days to build the product at the heart of the nation's raging gun debate. Malkowski, 34, has built a thriving business on AR-15 rifles and only rifles. The 6,000 semiautomatics produced each month in the small assembly room at Stag Arms are double the number from just last year. Back orders for 70,000 more will take two years to fill. Resembling firearms carried by police SWAT teams and soldiers, the guns are the kind that - since the Newtown massacre just two months ago and 32miles away - have inspired a flurry of new legislative proposals, from a reinstatement of the assault weapons ban and limits on the size of ammunition clips to background checks for all weapons purchases. For Malkowski, the gusting political forces represent a uncertain future for Stag Arms and for the larger, surging industry whose iconic names - Colt, Remington, Smith & Wesson and Sturm Ruger - have been largely invisible on the national stage since Dec. 14 when 20 children and six staffers were gunned down at Newtown's Sandy Hook Elementary School. Malkowski recalls being "instantly sickened" after learning of the Sandy Hook shooting, though he said he is not aware of his guns being linked to murder. On universal background checks, Malkowski offers some possibility for compromise: "I'm not saying I'm opposed," he said. "I would just like to know more I'm all for making stuff safer. I have two children. I want to make the safest products possible." read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...-valley-in-cross-hairs-of-gun-debate/1949465/ ....... IMO: Malkowski has a moral standard to follow if he is to be judged innocent of selling weapons that kill people, animals, beer cans, school children, and are largely for people that fear something in their lives to the point that they will buy countless firearms in their effort to hoard them to protect himself and his family. From what he is only vaguely sure, but the fear is great. Only when stricter gun laws are made, and a thorough review of the personality of the buyer can be made, then sellers will be less responsible for the carnage that follows many gun sales by people like Malkowski. In the matter of guns, Congress has the greatest responsibility, the NRA, and then the gun merchants that make a living off a common instrument of death of innocent citizens.
The lefty gun grabbers are only demanding background checks today but that's not the end of it. When your new law fails to stop gun deaths you'll be back tomorrow with new demands. The only sensible answer is no.
Getting desperate? The article is from February of this year, and your beloved gun control has had its Richard pretty well pounded into the dirt. Why not finish the job and bury it?
There is a fundamental problem in that firearms can and do represent a threat to the public safety and our government has a legitimate responsibility when it comes to addressing issues of public safety. The gun control nuts want to address not just public safety but personal safety as well when it comes to firearms but the government has no role or responsibility related to the personal safety of the person. The gun nuts want to basically ignore any public safety issues that still exist. Of course the common denominator, and the root of the problem, is that both of these extremes are "nuts" and neither side is willing to address pragmatic resolutions to the public safety issues that government does have a responsibility to address. There really are pragmatic solutions to addressing the public safety threat that firearms represent.
99.9999% of gun owners use them responsibly. What you said is like blaming ALL automobile drivers for the fact that a few drink and drive each year and kill people on the road. Do you want to ban all cars? Punish all the good responsible drives for the actions of a few? If a couple teachers/school personnel had had a gun with them on that morning of the school shooting, they could have gone down the hall, found the nut ball and shot him in the back...and perhaps have saved some of those kids. It's just too bad they didn't.
You call me a gun nut but I've never committed a crime with a gun. Never shot anyone in a random drive by attack or any other way. Why am I a nutcase for protecting my constitutional rights from people who want to take them?
There are factories/armories all over this country producing tons of munitions for the US government daily. Are they morally responsible for what they are used for? Is Obama morally responsible for every shot fired by a US soldier? Should he be on trial right alongside every soldier being charged with war crimes?
Many happy, prosperous nations have populations who are mostly unarmed. They're doing fine because guns don't solve problems. If everyone was unarmed, it wouldn't be the end of the world. Guns are not essential to survival in a civilized society, contrary to what gun nuts claim.
Usually, gun makers strive to be invisible to the general public. They've got a great racket. They jacked up prices after the black man became President, and the rubes paid up!!!!! Not only that, but they got honest gun owner and rubes alike to finance their lobbying effort. With customers like these, it would be nearly impossible to lose money in the weapons business!!!!!
Guess you've never driven through the blue state of Connecticut. Invisible? Far from it. I think you just made that up.
Care to provide any statistics or proof for this statement below? Gun Manufactures stay prominent in the sport and do not hide. As for a Black man causing increased prices I will wait for you to provide proof. I seen lobbyist for gun control have an effect on pricing.
Not lately,. But I was referring to the world in general. You don't see the weapons industry in the business press very often, even though it's one of the most profitable industries in the US. - - - Updated - - - Tell me that you bought guns for the same or less than you paid for them in 2008. Tell me that demand didn't suddenly radically increase after the 2008 elections.
Huh? "Instruments of death of innocent citizens"? Are you aware that far more people are stabbed and beaten to death with fists, bats, and knives, than by assault type weapons? What are you or anyone else doing about that? If you're still freakily fixated on assault type rifles, it's because your'e brainwashed and manipulated. What you should fear are people driving SUV's, and accidents at home and at work. So while your'e fixated on assault type rifles, if your'e gonna get hurt or killed, it will be by an automobile, an accident at home, or someone with a club who blindsides you.
Tom, this forum is posting results of the Sandy Hook Shooting (December 14, 2012) in regards of pricing (Look at the dates). Lobbyist and State legislators came out in full force in want of banning all kinds of firearms, magazines and ammo. How does this tie into the Black POTUS? I will wait for your proof......
No doubt demand skyrocketed even before the election. It's not so much the manufacturers jacking up the prices as you claim but the dealers. No doubt firearms and accessories are the only part of the economy Thriving with a Capitol T. Odd the lefties wish to destroy that. As for Colt, PTR and most of Stag Arms, they're moving out of Connecticut and finding friendlier business climes. Thousands of jobs the libs drove away. Amazing stupidity.
NO!!!! criminals represent a threat to public safety. the disturbed and the malevolent represent a threat to public safety. these are individuals and must be dealt with on an individual basis. the desire to lump them into a category based on the tools they use and then add in everyone else who happens to use those same tools is a threat to our society. it is an even greater threat because it doesn't merely pick us off one by one, it degrades what we most desire the very meaning of being a member of this society to be.
Alas, I am not a 'gun nut' or a 'grabber'. My wife and I both have CCW's in one of the most liberal, gun-restricted state. We have 6 handguns, and 5 rifles/shotguns. At the same time, we have absolutely no problems with closing the gun registration loop (requiring background checks and registration for all handguns purchases, including private sale). Yet, we are also not so delusional to think that the incidents that horrify us the most (ex. school shootings would be prevented with increased gun control. Taken together, our views are likely scorned by both sides as misguided/confused/stupid. Point: not much room for a middle ground on this topic.
Fortunately for folk interested in the Law and freedom, real Americans, the grabbers have zero possibility of taking away our basic right to effective self defense. Congress made it very clear about a decade ago that manufacturers have no liability for the improper use of their goods.
And government....the police are 11 times more likely to be involved in an illegal shooting than a concealed gun carrier. Combine that with the current federal government abuse and the local police pretending they are special forces and government is the greatest enemy of public safety.
Such drama. I am certain you are aware that less then 1% of firearms in the country are ever sued for crime, correct? Of course you are. So why should anyone but the perpetrator be held responsible for a crime? Should Budweiser be held responsible for a DUI fatality? Should you be responsible for the criminal misuse of something to sell to something? Do you see how stupid it sound when it is applied to you?
Then those people can go unarmed. If you don't like guns, don't buy one. Those who feel their dislike of guns (or anything really) should be applied to other people should seriously just (*)(*)(*)(*) off and die.
..... 1) Have a credible link to that statement? 2) That is a very extreme attitude you have...(and an obvious attempt to justify the many gun deaths of innocent victims in America) and a car accident from drinking and driving shows that person should not have a license, a crazy male coming into a theatre and killing many people with an assault weapon should not have a license to own a gun. It is the responsibility of the government to pass strict laws so that this no longer occurs. 3) To transfer blame for a massacre of 20 children and 6 teachers on some mystical teacher or school personnel 'not having a gun' to murder another man with a gun is not a solution but a return to the Wild Wild West where even cowboys were made to stash their guns in a separate room before going into the saloons...a foregone knowledge of the violence some men can accomplish by drinking and holding a weapon of death in their hands. You are just regurgitating the propaganda of the NRA...
