Mayors prepare boycott of gun manufacturers in order to push for gun control

[n2sooners]

Minnesota Public Radio reports that Mayor R.T. Rybak of Minneapolis has said that he and 60 other mayors are considering boycotts of gun makers who don’t agree to their sweeping list of gun control demands. Taking a page from the Rahm Emanuel playbook, the mayors intend to use their police department purchasing power as leverage.

This is a re-hash of the Clinton Administration threat, spearheaded by then-HUD Secretary and now governor of New York Andrew Cuomo, to do the same with federal agencies. Despite a successful court action by NSSF to counter the threat at the time, the idea was kicked up again in 2010 by disgraced former New York governor Eliot Spitzer, who suggested that gun makers must cease and desist the sale of ALL semi-automatic firearms to escape this punishment.

Choosing a service sidearm for police agencies is serious business. Law enforcement procurement officers will be less than pleased to learn that their political overseers seem to want them to go back to revolvers in order to make a point in the gun control debate. In Minneapolis, the deputy chief said “ultimately, it is the chiefs decision what gun is going to be authorized for use by the department,” but the city attorney countered by saying “the city can always set reasonable specifications for the purchases it’s making.”

Mayor Rybak said he mentioned the idea to Barack Obama during a recent visit, and “Obama and his staff were delighted by the idea.”

By no coincidence, Obama is visiting Minneapolis on Monday, February 4th, for the first of a lengthy series of campaign-style gun control pep rallies. Perhaps the mayor and the White House plan to try out the idea that very day, telling both the Secret Service and local law enforcement to turn in their semi-automatic pistols and carry only .38 snubnoses for event security.

If so, it’s safe to predict that “delight” is not the response they will receive.

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Not sure where the story writer gets the idea they would have to go to revolvers. They would still need to buy new revolvers from a manufacturer. I'd think they would just be stuck using whatever they have now or import from overseas.

I think it's time for gun and ammo makers to stand up to those mayors and governors who are trying to put them out of business and refuse to sell firearms or ammo to those cities and states. There are far more private citizens and LEO in gun friendly cities and states, and at this time gun and ammo makers are selling just about everything they can make as fast as they can make it. It isn't like losing a few cities would hurt them.

 

[Glocktogo]

I think it's past time that the NSSF and gun manufacturers boycott these urban cesspools that use their guns, but deny their citizens the same. Figure that NYC buys 35,000-70,000 Glocks in 10 years. Gun sales in 2012 alone totaled over 16,000,000. Guns sold to agencies are sold at below market value, so the profit margin is much smaller. If a major manufacturer came out like Barrett did and said "No guns for you!", their civilian sales would go through the roof!

These idiot mayors better be careful, because they're playing with fire on this one!

 

[TwoForFlinching]

^ thats not good business... Doesn't matter where profits come from, as long as it's profitable.

 

[RickN]

Any manufacturers located in anti-gun states should move to gun friendly states. The lose of jobs and tax money will do more to shut up the anti-gun crowd.

 

[n2sooners]

^ thats not good business... Doesn't matter where profits come from, as long as it's profitable.

Doing business with those trying to put you out of business isn't good business.

 

[10Seconds]

Lets do math. If the manufacture's profit on a new glock is $10, and they sell 70,000 of them to NYC over 10 yrs, that is $70,000 per year they would lose. And Business Week estimated in 2011 that Glock makes a whopping 68% profit margin per pistol. At wholesale pricing, that would make that $10 in the example about more like $272, or a loss of $1.9 million per year.

I think that the PR boost from the public to a manufacturer standing up to this oppression should be worth something too, but without knowing what Glock's overall sales are (as they are privately held) its hard to say if this would be a good trade in the business sense.

 

[n2sooners]

I'd say at this moment it would be a good deal. Popular firearms are being bought as fast as they hit the shelves. Online dealers have a very limited supply. And each manufacturer makes far more money on each unit they sell to civilians than to those they sell to law enforcement. And we are only talking about a few cities and states. On the other hand, if the frenzy dies down then they might start losing some money by having inventory sitting on the shelves, but as long as the gun grabbers are aggressively perusing gun bans I don't see that frenzy dying down anytime soon. And it would be even better if ammo makers joined in. While police forces could make due with what they have for a while as far as firearms go, there is no way they could make due without ammo for very long.

These mayors think they can bring these manufacturers to their knees, but if they stick together the exact opposite is true.

 

[andrsnsm]

These mayors are meaningless and ignorant asshats. Ignore them.

 

[Glocktogo]

^ thats not good business... Doesn't matter where profits come from, as long as it's profitable.

Seriously? Apparently you've never worked in retail before. Some customers actually cost you money in the balance.

 

[Shadowrider]

Lets do math. If the manufacture's profit on a new glock is $10, and they sell 70,000 of them to NYC over 10 yrs, that is $70,000 per year they would lose. And Business Week estimated in 2011 that Glock makes a whopping 68% profit margin per pistol. At wholesale pricing, that would make that $10 in the example about more like $272, or a loss of $1.9 million per year.

I think that the PR boost from the public to a manufacturer standing up to this oppression should be worth something too, but without knowing what Glock's overall sales are (as they are privately held) its hard to say if this would be a good trade in the business sense.

If you take the 70,000 glocks out of NYC and put them in the retail market I guarandamntee you they'll sell. And at higher markup like GTG said.