Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: Battle Monkey of Zardoz on March 15, 2013, 01:48:19 AM
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Colt has finally entered the gun control arena. I hope they follow the example of other companies.
http://politics.foxnews.mobi/quickPage.html?page=23888&content=90733114&pageNum=-1
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Stand by for the peanut gallery all over the interwebs to say they "aren't doing enough" like they did with magpul.
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Sweet!
Lets face it, unless the big boys that get 99% of the contracts step up, all the little guys combined doing so aint going to mean a damned thing.
Now if Colt, S&W, and Glock were to do so someone just might take a pause, allbeit probably a brief one. Probably just long enough for them to type up some legislation to nationalize something.
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Stand by for the peanut gallery all over the interwebs to say they "aren't doing enough" like they did with magpul.
The fact that Colt did anything at all has exceeded all of my expectations already.
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The fact that Colt did anything at all has exceeded all of my expectations already.
Heh, yup. From what I read though, I'm pretty impressed with how they stepped up. Let's hope they hold the line.
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Good to see Colt isn't as deaf as they make out to be.
It's a start.
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The linked article mentions that there are postings urging Colt's to stop supplying police etc. in New York.
GOOD.
I understand a major manufacturer's reluctance to immediately cut off a customer, so the "employee action" they facilitated is a good initial step. But we'll all be watching to see if they (AND S&W, AND Glock, AND Ruger, AND Federal, AND Speer, etc.) step up and cut support to the bad guys like many smaller companies are doing, or fold up and continue government business as usual if the easy way doesn't work.
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While it would be strangely satisfying to drive by a vacant lot on 91 where Colt used to stand, just as a middle finger to Connecticut's shortsightedness, I hope these efforts are fruitful.
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Colt already can't sell their AR-15 in CT. I agree that they should not sell to NY and their is pressure being applied to do just that.
I would like to see Colt move to FL and open a larger facility in FL or any other free state. They have not "threatened" CT yet. But it is a business decision.
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Colt already can't sell their AR-15 in CT. I agree that they should not sell to NY and their is pressure being applied to do just that.
I would like to see Colt move to FL and open a larger facility in FL or any other free state. They have not "threatened" CT yet. But it is a business decision.
I would think that just the tax/living expense/prevailing wage difference most places in the South would pay for the move. =|
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I would think that just the tax/living expense/prevailing wage difference most places in the South would pay for the move. =|
I think there's a gun manufacturing labor force legacy of sorts in the CT/MA/NH/NY area that Kahr, Kel-Tec, Sig, S&W, Colt, Ruger and others enjoy making use of. A great big multigenerational brain-trust of gun manufacturing skill that they are loathe to give up on, maybe with a bit of loyalty to the history of manufacturing innovation and revolutionaryism. At this point I'd call that loyalty misplaced, though.
It would tickle me to no end if all those companies just picked up and moved west of the Mississippi River. UT, NV, AZ, NM, ID, MT, WY.
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So offer the labor force a relocation option to come with them. I'm betting with a little assistance more than a few of them would be happy to move to free states. I know if I was working and living behind enemy lines for one of the big boys and they said they were moving and offered me some cash to come along I'd sign up in a heart beat.
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Frankly, dual-siting to a right to work State would do a lot for these companies:
1. Their union workforces would see the writing on the wall and make efforts to be more patient with demands on the employer.
2. The State governments would have less leverage over the business profitability since relocation out of 1 State would only involve a 50% shutdown rather than a 100% shutdown.... and could probably be phased in a way that no more than a 25% loss in output was ever manifested.
3. The potential to relocate out of 1 State is easier since you end up developing two separate sets of skilled labor, rather than just one.
Colt's Manufacturing: Santa Fe, NM.
Who wouldn't want that rollmark? :laugh:
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That all sounds fun and good, but keep in mind that their current buildings and land were paid off many, many, many years ago. Mortgage/Rent is not hitting their bottom lines. And it's not as easy to sell (try damn near impossible) industrial (especially a site that will require an EPA clean-up) to pack up and move. Then you have to move machine tools and industrial equipment. You can't just run down to U-Haul and get a box truck, throw the wife and kids in the front and head off into the sunset.
Plus trying to maintain production (you actually have to build ahead and have finished goods inventory laid in while your dissembling your factory, moving it cross country and the re-assemble it. The fun part is actually getting everything to work again.) When we moved B-way from Kilbourn and Cermak to 31st and Central we had purchased Central Can Co. Even running their machines flat out 24/7 in three shifts, we still had to have 8 months of Finished Goods Inventory while we moved 400+ truckloads of industrial equipment. And we ran out of stuff there near the end. The cupboard was quite bare.
And it wasn't cheap. If there hadn't been the vacant lot next door where we built the warehouse additional, we'd still be in two separate hundred+ year old plants.
Budget for the move was $45 million. And we went about a million over.
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That all sounds fun and good, but keep in mind that their current buildings and land were paid off many, many, many years ago. Mortgage/Rent is not hitting their bottom lines. And it's not as easy to sell (try damn near impossible) industrial (especially a site that will require an EPA clean-up) to pack up and move. Then you have to move machine tools and industrial equipment. You can't just run down to U-Haul and get a box truck, throw the wife and kids in the front and head off into the sunset.
Plus trying to maintain production (you actually have to build ahead and have finished goods inventory laid in while your dissembling your factory, moving it cross country and the re-assemble it. The fun part is actually getting everything to work again.) When we moved B-way from Kilbourn and Cermak to 31st and Central we had purchased Central Can Co. Even running their machines flat out 24/7 in three shifts, we still had to have 8 months of Finished Goods Inventory while we moved 400+ truckloads of industrial equipment. And we ran out of stuff there near the end. The cupboard was quite bare.
And it wasn't cheap. If there hadn't been the vacant lot next door where we built the warehouse additional, we'd still be in two separate hundred+ year old plants.
^All of that^
Most of our production site got moved to eastern europe last year.
There's quite a bit of good speculation why our site is still open:
1. The few processes we still do at our are difficult and are more careful craftsmanship than anything that could be automated and the handful of us that do what we do are the best in the world. This is akin to worker at Colt or S&W that does the final stoning/fitting of trigger/sears in their custom shops- expensive but nigh impossible to replace in a short period of time.
2. The site itself- old building, paid for many times over, possible superfund site, grandfathered in on a lot of environmental regulations that are looser than even eastern europe, and its rumored that the corporation may have paid a lot more for our site than its worth.
Moving most of our processes to E.Europe was not smooth, and this was factoring in our employees were very dedicated (and well paid) to transfer the technology and build up a year's worth of inventory. There were other European sites in our corporation that were moved to the new site as well, with less cooperation, those moves were a disaster.
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The fact that Colt did anything at all has exceeded all of my expectations already.
Yup, mine too. I figured they'd be the first to capitulate to the Obama regime.
I remember during the 90s they really wanted to be nothing more than the defacto govt arsenal. They couldn't have given a crap less about a consumer market as long as tehy were getting govt contracts. They even bent over for the Klintoon and started manufacturing ARs with non-standard parts sizes.
Colt's actions today make them gladiators of gun-rights defense compared to what they were 20 years ago.
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That all sounds fun and good, but keep in mind that their current buildings and land were paid off many, many, many years ago. Mortgage/Rent is not hitting their bottom lines. And it's not as easy to sell (try damn near impossible) industrial (especially a site that will require an EPA clean-up) to pack up and move. Then you have to move machine tools and industrial equipment. You can't just run down to U-Haul and get a box truck, throw the wife and kids in the front and head off into the sunset.
Plus trying to maintain production (you actually have to build ahead and have finished goods inventory laid in while your dissembling your factory, moving it cross country and the re-assemble it. The fun part is actually getting everything to work again.) When we moved B-way from Kilbourn and Cermak to 31st and Central we had purchased Central Can Co. Even running their machines flat out 24/7 in three shifts, we still had to have 8 months of Finished Goods Inventory while we moved 400+ truckloads of industrial equipment. And we ran out of stuff there near the end. The cupboard was quite bare.
And it wasn't cheap. If there hadn't been the vacant lot next door where we built the warehouse additional, we'd still be in two separate hundred+ year old plants.
Budget for the move was $45 million. And we went about a million over.
Stalin threw steel mills on trains, as well as all sorts of other smaller stuff like tractor factories and the like. I hear that Mao, who had no trains, put rollers under stuff and had hordes drag it halfway across China to where other hordes put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Admittedly Colt and Remington and others do not have the same motivation to just yank it out by the roots and replant elsewhere. But ....
stay safe.
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^^^ No one is arguing that brutal repressive dictatorships offer some operational efficiencies that are hard to replicate in a constitutional republic.
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. . . When we moved B-way from Kilbourn and Cermak to 31st and Central we had purchased Central Can Co. . . .
Both sound like Chicago area locations . . . not terribly far apart, either.
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Both sound like Chicago area locations . . . not terribly far apart, either.
Yep, a little over two miles. It was a total Fluster Cluck.
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"I understand a major manufacturer's reluctance to immediately cut off a customer"
They might be legally liable for Breach of Contract. I would not blame them for not wanting to wade into those waters.
However, they could refuse to enter into future agreements.
Poper
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They might be legally liable for Breach of Contract. I would not blame them for not wanting to wade into those waters.
However, they could refuse to enter into future agreements.
Quite correct - existing contracts would have to be honored. But they could certainly refuse to sign additional contracts.
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More from Colt
http://www.foxnews.mobi/quickPage.html?page=22995&external=2038431.proteus.fma#quickPage_html_page_22995_content_91085625_pageNum_1