The Wall St. Journal tells a happy tale today…if you happen to have your nest egg invested in “an industry leading manufacturer of pistols, revolvers, rifles.”
That would be Smith & Wesson, whose shares are up as almost 28% since the opening today as I write this–on news that year-over-year revenue and per-share earnings are up substantially this quarter.
Well, merchants of death have to make a living too, I suppose, and a simple earnings report like this is depressing, but on its own not a major jolt to my equilibrium.
The grotesque emerges when CEO explains why he things the good times will continue to roll:
Chief Executive Mark Smith said the company believes it gained market share as shipments outpaced the overall firearm market. “We continue to expect the firearm market to experience healthy demand through the 2024 election cycle,” he said.
Let me repeat: “throughout the 2024 election cycle.” What could possibly be the connection between gun nuttery and elections?
Don’t answer that.
The Journal does slip in a hint of editorial comment with their choice of photograph; I don’t think it’s meant to give anyone (except modern Moloch worshippers) the warm and fuzzies. It’s a copyrighted image, so you’ll have to click the link to see what I mean.
But back to Mr. Smith. Does he hear himself? Do any of our “friends”* on the right have any idea how linking home arsenals and voting actually sounds?
Don’t answer that either.
I don’t have a lot more to say on this. Y’all know how I feel about American gun idolatry. Gun regulation isn’t enough. Expose the manufacturer’s to all the liability exposure. Charge a society-born cost-of-gun-violence on every firearm and each box of ammo sold. Go for any fissure or crack in the 2A regime that the Supremes have decided we must endure.
Or, more simply, intercourse them orthogonally with an oxidized farm implement.
Open threads, not fire!
*Editor: they are not our friends.”
Image: Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts, Trompe l’Oeil with Pistols, 1672
Times of Israel – U.S. Military Emergency Mission to Build Pier Off the Coast of Gaza
Jerry
Also could be right wingers thinking that Biden will win reelection over their lord n savior and want to stock up now before the Demoncrap libtards personally attempt to confiscate all of their precious weapons?
BC in Illinois
Amendment Two-ish:
Jess
If I lived anywhere but New England, I would be tempted to arm myself against the zombie MAGA hoards. It may not be only the rabid right that’s arming itself. If that’s the case, it’s true that it’s a dire sign, but not necessarily a bad development.
Jess
@Jerry: They’ve been doing that for some time already, especially during the Obama years. If they want to spend more money adding to their bloated armory, instead of donating it to MAGA candidates, then I’m cool with that.
Villago Delenda Est
I fully endorse this proposal.
Origuy
Mashup video with the SOTU and Britt’s rebuttal and Chumbawumba’s Tubthumping:
https://twitter.com/terminal_mode/status/1766058458909188558
evodevo
@Jess: Ironically, the Biden economy is so good for them, they can now afford even more expensive armaments LOL. That said, we here in KY are stocked up, too. Bring it on, MAGAts. We’re peaceful till attacked, and then not…
Old Man Shadow
Requiring a minimum of half a million dollars in liability insurance would go a long way towards making legal gun ownership out of reach for a lot of folks.
Jess
@evodevo: I’m saving up for a rocket launcher!
mrmoshpotato
@evodevo:
They’ll never know what hit ’em!
Narrator: It was lube. Lots and lots of lube. They were falling on their asses constantly.
Scout211
You might want to add the tag Second Amendment Worshipping Federal Judges (or something like that). We have one of those here in California, Judge Roger Benitez, who overturns every gun control law that California passes. Or it seems like it. Appointed by George W. Bush, he is the Judge of choice for all of the gun nuts and gun sellers and gun manufacturers who object to every single gun regulation that the legislature passes and is signed into law. Sigh.
raven
“It may not be only the rabid right that’s arming itself”
You betcha
Dan
@Jerry: I think this is the simple answer. Democrats are going to take your guns! Sure, not this time around, but next time for sure!
Villago Delenda Est
@Dan: I read that in Bill Scott as Bullwinkle’s voice.
trollhattan
Not the quiet parts out loud so much as the shouty parts through a bullhorn.
“If you ain’t scared you ain’t payin’ attention, sheeple. Bang!”
Great country, or greatest country?
Haiti blaming all their armed gangs on American guns. True? No idea. Guns are expensive, for starters.
prostratedragon
@Villago Delenda Est: You’ve installed a Bullwinkle filter, too?
Miss Bianca
@Scout211: You know, I really wish there was some way to make judge-shopping like this illegal, instead of just unethical and immoral.
Bugboy
RE: Gun Fellators. I’ve found it extremely distressing that I, having grown up in a house in the hills with a full gun cabinet and a couple muzzle loaders on the wall, have to listen to the goddamned wannabe hunter/warrior (they can’t decide which to be, or both) townies I grew up with crow about how fucking great it is to have a full gun cabinet.
Parfigliano
Tax the actual bullet (object that exits the barrel) around $2.00 per. Same for every 1.25 oz of shot for shot gun shells. With this tax structure you get the re-loaders too.
eversor
@evodevo:
As a vet and a person who does own weapons (let’s be real about it) while pricey they can be stupidly cheap. I’m not an AR guy (I had my share of that both in and out of uniform back then) but I do own a shotgun, pistol, revolver, and a bolt action. Two of which were from my dad (who was an Army officer), one of which was a gift (to eat Bambi! Bambi is good eating, don’t look down on it!) and one of which I picked up on my own (SIG 9mm) as it was related to work at the time.
In all these cases what I have is super duper top end and is not affordable to most people. However if I wanted to get items that all do the same shit I could slice that down into a fraction of the price. To be more direct if one wanted say a 1911 pistol (this is a .45 that has been in production for fucking ever) you can get in for under 500 or you can spend a few thousand on it. Either way whatever you hit with it will be dead as fuck.
Most of this “tactical Ted” bullshit you see the nuts running around with is not high end kit. A high quality bolt action rifle that uses actual wood is going run you several times the cost of this fake ass weekend warrior shit. But it’s a grandpa gun (I got mine from a friend of the family who was a grandpa and we didn’t get many deer but we did go camping a lot, which looking back on it was probably the point?) and it doesn’t look scary.
There is no earthly fucking reason to have all these spin offs of military grade weapons made cheaply all over the damn place! It’s idiotic. My shotgun is a breach loader and for shooting the ducks, also wooden grandpa style. The revolver was from dad and I still camp and hike in the woods and thar be bears here and if we are serious about “defense against angry animals” a high powered revolver makes a hell of a lot more sense than an AR. They don’t jam and work up close and pack one hell of a hit!
For me any serious gun control should start at anything beyond revolvers, bolt actions, and shotguns is a big giant NO. I’m aware I have to give up my SIG, oh well! All of those are tool guns with legit uses. If someone is involved in defense, intel, law enforcement, park management (and more) they can state their cases and get whatever the hell they want. I don’t think any of that is unreasonable.
It’s also a public safety hazard. I learned to shoot as a kid. I had to learn all that all over again in the military. Most gun owners are bloody fucking idiots. Gun safes are next to non existent. Modern automatic pistols don’t have a safety but a safety trigger (the dingus!) and people are forever shooting themselves with them. About a year ago a friend of mine came over with a gun her dad left her and she couldn’t make it work and started waving it about in the room and it passed over my face until I tackled her to the floor and took it away. It didn’t work because it was an older model with a physical safety switch and she’d never seen that before. And that’s one of countless tales I could tell about people being dumb with guns. It’s non fucking stop. People are way too casual with these things.
It’s a pet peeve of mine as I had another idiot friend shoot himself in the leg while drunk. At that point you should never be allowed to own a gun again!
Uncle Cosmo
@Jess: Hordes, not “hoards,” fer dogsake. (Homonyms are a bee-yatch when all yinz got is a spell-checker…)
Jess
@Uncle Cosmo: Yes, I realized too late to edit. I have bronchitis and therefore am short of oxygen to my brain–gimme a break!
evodevo
@eversor: Yep…local customer on my mail route accidentally shot himself in the thigh with one of those “trigger safety” thingies, and bled out before the ambulance could get there (we live out in the boonies). Too many people have NO clue. We have lots of guns, but they are kept locked up tight. And you can’t hit shit with an AR – they just spew and jump around. Give me an old bolt action 30-06 any day.
gene108
@eversor:
I watched some YouTube videos from gun enthusiasts talking about the best bullet for a situation, with some talk about grain (I think) and how it affects stopping power.
Anyway, the comments were full of people talking about their home defense plans and the guns and bullets they’ll use. And I’m thinking, what is wrong with them? They’re actually buying guns and ammo for a hypothetical situation that most likely will never happen. It’s like they want to live in a fantasy.
Betty
Gun manufacturers must be held liable for these weapons. They are inherently dangerous.
Matt McIrvin
@gene108: They’re wishing for it to happen. What they want is an excuse to kill somebody and have it be right and good.
Jay
@trollhattan:
Canada, Mexico, Haiti, El Salvador, Columbia, etc.
Pistols and Black Guns are basically unregulated in the US, and as a result are “cheap” compared to the listed countries where guns are strictly regulated. They are also one of the most stolen items in the US.
Take the NS Mass Shooter for example. By benefit of having a Maine residence and Maine ID, he bought his arsenal legally in Maine, smuggled them across the border, then went on a killing spree.
If you smuggle a gun up to Canada, you can make a 250% profit to 1000% profit, paid in cash, meth or fentanyl, dependent on how you got the gun, (retail, gun show mark down, stolen).
If you smuggle the gun south, the profit is even greater, (paid in cash, meth, cocaine, heroin, fentanyl). And of course, if the gun is heading south, you don’t even have to smuggle it. The cartels have their own networks in the US, who are happy to pay retail plus.
Will
I bought a HK556 recently to go with the K98 my grandfather took out of the cold dead hands of a Nazi. The dealer was all smiles and laugh, then he asked me if I was ready to defend against the government. I told him that was stupid, the government would just fly a FPV drone through my window and blow me and the house to kingdom fucking come. No sir, this was so the first MAGAtard that thought it was go time got a German first class ticket to talk to Jesus. He didn’t say anything after that.
dirge
Let the actuaries figure out the minimum. Assuming that’s based on the amount of damage you can reasonably do, I’d guess you wind up with at least a couple million for a break action shotgun, and something astronomical for an AR15. Premium then adjusted for demographic info, storage, training certs, etc. In effect, you’ll get an assault weapon ban, where “assault weapon” just means “uninsurable” according to private industry.
If you think that’ll be too expensive for “responsible gun owners”, then create a federal reinsurance backstop. Fine, I suppose, if there’s a little help for relatively low risk gun owners. But that’s then a gun subsidy budget line item that we can fight over every election year, so I think it shrinks over time.
eversor
@Will:
Shit I was in the Navy. When we got pissed at people you had a TLAM fly through your window and gone you will be.
The people who are trying to gear up to fight the government have no concept of what they’d be up against. Even in famous disasters such as Vietnam or Iraq we didn’t fail to bring the pain, we failed to unscrew it after.
@evodevo:
The SIG has a dingus but then again I was properly trained. It’s also locked and in a safe and I keep rounds in the other safe. I’m not to worried about a zombie attack in Arlington VA! I’ve got a .308 bolt action and it’s a gem. The revolver is a .357. Beauty of these things is they don’t jam and they don’t have issues and as we do go camping it’s just nice to have.
They don’t look cool though. You can’t slap a jillion upgrades on them. There’s a lot of good outdoors stuff to do in VA including hunting, fishing, camping, and other fun stuff. And I’m well aware that “gun control” does not mean anybody is going to try and put a stop to any of that because nobody has a problem with that! In fact locally people who like hunting and fishing tend to be some of the most fanatical environmental advocates. Cause if you like hunting, fishing, camping, rafting, rock climbing, and all that you kinda need the wilds to do it!