We do not halt sales to individual officers even in problematic states [More]I have no idea how cop purchases work and if they vary from state-to-state. Do they go directly to the manufacturer after getting department clearance? If they go through FFLs, it would seem simply a matter of not shipping any verboten items to any dealer in that state.
ArmaLite is not winning itself any friends over this, and Pat Raley needs to be called into the head office and reamed. If I'd have responded to a public inquiry that way when I was in sales, I'd have expected to get canned.
[Via Andrea Shea King]
1 comment:
ArmaLite's position is interesting. I would disagree -- at this point -- with ending _all_ shipments to FFLs in abusive states. Private individuals have rights. I'd just stop selling to any government agency.
If an officer purchases his firearm through the same retail channels as any other private individual, ArmaLite should handle his transaction the same way, with no additioal restrictions (local FFLs who might be aware of a specific officer's hypothetical anti-civil rights position might want to refuse to do business with him). But at least in some jurisdictions, LEO are purchasing their weapons "privately" through their departments, bypassing restrictions on civilians. That's where -- again -- refusing to do business with government agencies should come in. From the ArmaLite statement regarding sales to Chicago cops, it's clear that those officers are using a system to bypass laws inflicted on us serfs.
While I haven't researched sales numbers, I'd guess that the vast majority of ArmaLite's sales are to government agencies and agents, and that they see absolutely no economic value in pissing off their real -- gov -- customers for the sake of a tiny minority of civilians sales. Civilians clearly do not matter to them. A civilian boycott -- which I still recommend -- probably won't matter to them either.
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