Posts Tagged → jobs
Ruger is about to be eaten alive
While the American gun world is presently enthralled by the ATF’s latest effort to deep-six the NFA and emasculate the GCA, and make SBRs and sawed-offs and suppressors available for all, we have something much more prosaic to discuss here. And it sucks.
Bill Ruger, Sr., was a famously driven man, a true American, who from his earliest adult years made unique, high quality guns that he wanted to make. These were firearms not yet on the market by any other manufacturer, and with no indications that there ever would be a market for them. They were often modeled after guns that had at one time been centerpieces of the foreign sporting world, like elegant, accurate British and Scottish-made Farquarson action single shots. And yet the markets followed him. In fact, Bill Ruger created markets not just for his own guns, but for whole categories of guns that Americans had not shown interest in for a hundred years, if ever.
Like the Ruger #1, a single shot, based on the Henry/ Farquarson action. Simple, rugged, exceptionally accurate, capable of all kinds of Africa-scale rounds. He also made side-by-side shotguns, and over-under shotguns, when both were falling out of favor to blastemall semi-autos. In fact, many younger Americans had never actually seen a double barreled shotgun in person, when Ruger brought his Red Label onto the market. Like the Bearcat and subsequent revolvers, introduced at a time when cowboy-style guns were long out of style.
Bill Ruger adapted investment casting for many of his firearms, which saved a lot of money in laborious machining and turning raw stock. He revolutionized modern gun manufacturing so well that competing companies, like Colt, began chasing the new markets that Bill Ruger had opened, often adopting his manufacturing methods in part or in full.
One of my favorite rifles is a 1980s Ruger M77 RSI International .308, that is as light and as pointable as a stalk of goldenrod, as accurate as a laser, and easy to carry all day long. Because it is so exceptionally light, short, and handy, and has a thumb safety on the tang, it is exceptionally fast on snap shots while stalking deer and bear in the mountains. My M77 RSI has killed countless deer and one bear. But the challenge with the M77 RSI is that Ruger had the short, thin, finely tapered barrels milled with the scope mounts integral to the barrel. Like the Germans used to do (and occasionally still do) on their finest sporting rifles. While a fabulous little work of art, the manufacturing costs for this gun were too high, and it was discontinued in the early 1990s. Tang-safety M77s were made a few years more, and then the ridiculous wing safety was used on all subsequent M77s. No still hunting for you!
Recently, Ruger bought out the old Marlin machinery from the old Remington plant in Ilion, New York. I toured that factory about fifteen years ago, and what a loss that it is now gone, that the workers there are gone, that the Remington name is now gone from the town of its founding after more than two hundred years. Crappy or shady business practices caused the new-new-new Remington to fail, even though it produced many good products. Though the old Marlin 1895 was not well made in the Remington plant, with “Remlin” rifles pretty low on the totem pole.
Well, Ruger took the lever action world by storm when it resuscitated the Marlin 1895 a few years ago, in its state-of-the-art Mayodan, North Carolina plant. Flawless, incredibly accurate, reliable, rugged, this stainless lever gun in its original 45-70 became the go-to for Alaskan big game guides in grizzly country. It is the gun I take hunting in Alaska. I have killed several deer and a bear with mine. One shot kills, one at 160 yards with open sights (my eyes are aging and that kind of shooting just ain’t happening any more, sadly).
And Ruger has also continued to make all the oldies-but-goodies that are cornerstones of the gun owning world: The GP100 .357, .44 Mag Redhawk, .44 Mag Blackhawk, .45 Colt Vaquero, and Bearcat revolvers, the Ruger Number 1 single shot, and the M77 series of rifles, among others.
Ruger can continue to run a perfectly successful business making these “legacy” models, because while their markets are not on fire, like the 1895 is, they are steady. Their customers want them. Not by the truckload, but enough to keep several highly trained workers busy full-time, and money coming in steadily.
But Ruger is about to be eaten alive in a foreign corporate takeover, and the company has already notified its customers that it is dropping an awful lot of the oldies-but-goodies, including most of the revolvers. Whether this decision is a tactical retreat under the turtle shell by current ownership, in order to shed less-productive or under-performing, or expensive to make products, balance the books, and shield against the coming hostile takeover attempt, or is a giant flash increase in short-term profitability so that the takeover costs as much as it possibly can, who can say. The fact is, Beretta is gunning for Ruger, and it appears that they are likely to take over.
And Ruger is showing the signs of a prey animal. Tossing stuff overboard in an attempt to pick up speed as it flees its pursuer.
Forgive my national pride and my national interest bit, but I am not happy about losing another indigenous firearm manufacturing company to a foreign country. Yeah yeah yeah, Beretta is 500 and some years old. Whateva. Great. I like that. Good for Italy. But that means nothing of consequence to any of us Americans, when what we need are Ruger replacement parts easily obtainable here in America, sold to us by Americans on the phone.
Remington 3.0 went to the Great Gun Maker in the sky a few years ago. Winchester bounced back and forth between the Japanese and the Belgians, and now exists in some purgatorial form that occasionally shows up like a ghost, and then disappears back into the shadows, again. Colt has barely hung on, same for Smith & Wesson. America’s native gun makers are Henry, Taylor’s (which also imports quality Italian firearms), Barrett, a few other small shops specializing in hyper accurate sporting rifles. America needs all the gun makers it can get, making not just sporting weapons but military weapons, too. We cannot survive if we outsource our weapons acquisitions to foreign makers.
America needs Ruger. But it appears we are getting Beretta, and there is no way that firm is going to run the company the Bill Ruger way. Here comes the corporate slashing and bleeding, the loss of fabulous guns, and the loss of American jobs, in the name of maximum profit. Maybe Beretta wants a lever action shotgun, and is acquiring Ruger just for that. I guess that might be in the spirit of ol’ Bill.
Ruger’s M77 RSI International in .308, that has killed over a hundred deer in my hands, a bear, some other critters. Just recently topped with a now discontinued Leupold 1×5, perfect for the slow mountain still hunting I enjoy
Ruger Marlin 1895 in 45-70 with shed buck I shot in Dauphin County a few years ago. Laser accurate gun
Abandoned mine site in remote Alaska, five mile walk in from dead-end dirt road. Over a week of hunting this area, I saw moose and griz aplenty, heard a wolf pack howling, passed up on a smaller black bear I literally walked right up to and looked over. Having my own handloaded brass solids in the Ruger Marlin 1895 was the most reassuring feeling
Hunting in Alaska requires all kinds of layers, and waterproofs, rubber boots, and stainless rifles. The Ruger Marlin 1895 is my go-to gun for these trips
ICE & Tariffs are acid test of loyalty to America First
Support for secure American borders and controlled (and highly limited) immigration is a basic tenet of loyalty to America. People who want open borders and all of the chaos and cultural destruction that follow are by definition enemies of America, as it was founded and run for the past 250 years. We cannot have open borders and have a nation, especially a nation of laws, and a nation of laws that are applied equally to one and all. When borders are erased, the nation is erased.
That Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) has become the target for de-funding and dissolution by an entire political party says a lot: That political party is once again, like it was in 1860, the main domestic enemy of America. That political party wants to dissolve ICE, and with it, dissolve America.
Please, do not tell us that you are a Democrat, but that you “don’t agree with that.” Like the Democrats who I know personally, and love, and yet do not understand.
If you are a registered Democrat who votes for elected Democrats, who are trying to implement open borders policy, then you are supporting open borders and all that flows from it. So, opposing open borders, and supporting ICE, is one acid test of loyalty to a constitutional American republic, as founded.
A second acid test of loyalty to America is support for tariffs on our trading partners. Tariffs protect American manufacturing businesses, American jobs, many American unions, and often equally match foreign tariffs on American products tit-for-tat. Saying that you are for tariffs tells us straight-up that you want America to be treated equally by its trading partners, and that you do not want American jobs to be shipped overseas to our competitors. Supporting tariffs also says that you want America to enjoy having strategic depth across a universe of business sectors and manufacturing areas. Without strategic depth in domestic production, America is at a great disadvantage against our trading partners and enemies.
A classic example of domestic weakness is the array of critical minerals and metals that America depends upon and which we source from outside America. Most come from unstable regions where child slaves and environmental catastrophes go hand-in-hand with the related mining, or from enemies like China, who can use embargoes to damage American military and communications production. Tariffs correct artificial market inequities, and create financial incentives for domestic production and mining within America.
Yes, conventional modern economics states that tariffs have a negative rebound effect on American consumers, who supposedly end up paying for those tariffs when they buy foreign products imported into America. Without question there is some truth to this, especially in the early stages of tariffs on certain products, especially things like furniture. And yet there is also a ton of evidence to the contrary, where once America met tariffs on us with tariffs on them, our own domestic capacity was once again incentivized to giddyup and go.
I myself have a front row seat on the tariff policy debate. In the world of hardwood timber, logs, and lumber, we are witnessing a one-two punch in the international markets that has caused hardwood products to hold steady in a low area. When China’s domestic demand for American hardwoods dropped several years ago, then our log and lumber prices fell commensurately. We used to cut certain hardwood species and put them right onto shipping containers bound for Asia; not much right now.
Add tariffs to that weak Chinese demand, and we have a suppression of our hardwoods markets. As a result, a lot of Pennsylvania and New York sawmills have gone out of business in the past couple of years. And timber is a poor investment right now. However, as painful and as scary as this situation is, it is the kind of natural market correction America needed. I cannot blame President Trump for this situation, and frankly, I cannot really blame AutoPen Biden for it, either, as these are supply-and-demand forces beyond America’s control. One thing President Trump can and did control, however, was the matching of tariffs on Chinese wood flooring and furniture with American tariffs of our own.
Why not? If you love America, and you want America to survive and thrive, then you want Americans to stop giving away our products, our money, our jobs, our natural resources. Tariffs do that, quite well. Especially when you live in the Number One Trading Partner nation in the world, America.
In conclusion, if you oppose ICE and secure borders and controlled legal immigration, then you are for chaos and the destruction of America. Just like you were an outside enemy seeking our failure. And if you oppose tariffs, or you oppose giving the president the power to tariff trade items, then you really have it in for our American union workers, and you hate our small towns and manufacturing plants. You have then failed two acid tests of your loyalty to America.
And if you are disloyal to America, you should not be surprised when people like me, loyal patriots, view you with great skepticism. But then, if you belong to the political party of 1860 insurrection and slavery, you are already used to that…and it seems you wear that big scarlet “A” as a badge of honor!
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Change Needed in Aisle One – Bob Casey needs to go
Several names are on repeat across the decades here in Pennsylvania politics – Scranton and Casey being the two modern dynasties. Both Scranton and Casey families have fielded repeat elected officials, some of whom have been impressive, and some of whom have simply ridden on the coat tails of their fathers and gotten very little done, except hold office and enjoy prestige and an easy paycheck.
Bob Casey, Jr. is of the latter clan, and he has now been a US senator for egads, I don’t know how long, a really long time. At least 18 years. Before that he held elected office at the state level. All because his dad, Bob Casey, Sr., was an impressive moderate governor, who understood and worked with all ends of the political spectrum.
This current Casey apple has fallen way far away from the Casey apple tree, as Bob Casey, Jr. has held hard to the extreme political Left and never looked back or right. Everything he originally ran on – somewhat pro Life, earnestly pro gun rights, pro free speech, pro religious rights, pro Pennsylvania jobs, pro Pennsylvania workers – forget it all, he ditched it all.
Bob Casey, Jr. is a full-on Washington DC Swamp Thing. He has abandoned us Pennsylvanians as he galavants around DC enjoying feeling important, year after year after year. I took some screenshots of his official US Senate website earlier this year, before the campaign season started up. See them below. They show that Bob Casey has done literally nothing, zero, for years. He did not even try to pretend that he was doing anything!
One of my greatest frustrations are voters who say “Well, my parents were Democrats and, by golly, I vote Democrat, too.”
Ummm hello, this Democrat Party today is not your grandfather’s Democrat Party. It is a totalitarian, cruel, vicious, lawless communist movement that must be stopped. It really has not changed much since the Democrat Party was defeated by the Union Army in 1865, but for a few decades it was home to amazing American leaders like John F. Kennedy.
Today, JFK would be a far-right Republican. That is how much the Democrat Party has moved to the Left.
So, the only way a do-nothing DC Swamp Thing like Bob Casey gets re-elected is when people vote because they recognize a name and think “Awww, I like that guy.”
No, you do don’t like Bob Casey. Not if you are paying any attention to him. He has done nothing for Pennsylvanians for decades. Casey has literally abandoned us Pennsylvanians, because he has relied on a mindless, robotic voting bloc to keep returning him to power, regardless of his incompetence and lack of loyalty to them.
Unfortunately, candidate Dave McCormick is the alternative to Casey. And I am no fan of McCormick, who I think is likely to try to become a DC Swamp Thing himself.
In the Republican primary for US Senate earlier this year, I supported Brandi Tomasetti, whose ballot signatures were ridiculously challenged by McCormick at the last minute, so she was forced to withdraw from the race. Anyone who has an inkling of this ballot petition process knows it is ripe for abuse in every direction, and McCormick took full advantage of his big money opportunity to knock his only competitor off the ballot. Brandi just did not have the money to withstand all of the legal challenges McCormick threw at her.
I really dislike people who game any system, and McCormick definitely gamed the PA primary election system. Yuck. If you believe in giving the voters a choice, and if you believe in yourself, then you are not afraid of a challenger with ten bucks in her campaign account. You debate her and beat her fair and square. McCormick did not do any of that.
Plus, I like my Pennsylvania politicians to actually live in Pennsylvania, which Casey used to (he has spent all his time in DC for many years), and which McCormick used to. On this count, both men are losers.
Whatever RINO DC Swamp garbage McCormick is inclined to engage in, he will stand up for our Second Amendment rights, of that I am certain. And that alone qualifies him for my vote and the vote of every other Pennsylvania gun owner and hunter. So tired of being sold out on this critical issue by liar Bob Casey!
So I am no huge fan of Dave McCormick. But on balance, he is the lesser of two evils. After decades of watching Casey do nothing for us, it is time for a change in Senate Aisle One and Bob Casey has got to go. Time for a new face, a new voice. McCormick got my vote, and I hope you will send a message to DC and vote for him as well.
And Dave McCormick, if you win this election, and spend the next six years ingratiating yourself deeply into the DC Swamp, and abandon us like Bob Casey has, then I will move Heaven and Earth to find a viable challenger in your first primary race.
Only in July of this year did Bob Casey post anything on his senate website. And he made no mention of the assassination attempt on Trump. Bob Casey is a huge zero.
Earth Day: Protect What Matters
Today is Earth Day, a day annually marked for environmental protection. Good, we need it. We all need to breathe clean air, drink clean water, and eat clean food.
All kinds of organizations run advertisements today promoting a clean environment, a protected environment, wildlife habitat conservation, and so on. Most of the ideas we will see promoted today are worthy of attention and worthwhile policy efforts, while some of the more heavily marketed ideas are Marxist anti-capitalism dingbat stuff.
The two biggest challenges we have on Earth Day are overcoming the fake issue of human-caused “climate change,” and protecting the American economy. Achieving both of these goals will actually maximally protect the environment.
“Climate change” on its face is a factual thing, because Planet Earth has had constant climate change since its creation. Glaciers have come and gone on their own, sea levels have risen and fallen on their own, and plants and animals have come and gone as the greater environmental forces around them directly shape their habitat, the salinity of the water they live in, and the air they breathe. All of this dynamism has happened without any human intervention. In fact, most of it has happened without any humans existing at all.
Climate change continues on today just as it always has since the Earth was born, and though human actions might contribute to it in some minuscule way, the fact is that humans have a far greater and more measurable impact on more important environmental issues.
The problem with the current human-caused climate change hoax is that it sucks all of the air out of the room, leaving no oxygen for other real, actual, measurable and documented issues like lost wildlife habitat, farmland loss, water quality, forest fragmentation, and controlling the invasive plants and animals that are literally destroying our native environments and species.
All of the “climate change” policy bandied about is a result of bad modeling using flawed data, junk science, topped off with deliberate fraud and public shaming of heretics. The fake but well-heeled climate change industry is fueled by juicy foundation and government grants, making all kinds of financial incentives for people to continue this fakery. Fake climate change junk science can be a hell of a good business for a few private bank accounts!
Normal people see this obvious policy fraud and end up writing off the entire quest for environmental quality as just a bunch of “environmentalist wackos” trying to destroy Western Civilization. And indeed, a great many of the climate change advocates are in fact America-hating Marxists, whose suspect opinions aren’t worth spit. But it is not fair to roll all environmental quality efforts in with the climate change nonsense. Leftists include the real issues together with fake climate change to give climate change unwarranted credibility, while magical-thinking meatheads on the right also do it to discredit all environmental quality issues.
If there is one thing we have all witnessed over the past month of China Flu coronavirus here in America, it is that in addition to weakening America by sending our technology and jobs there, for decades Americans have exploited Chinese slave labor and the Chinese environment so that we could have more cheap junk available to play with at home. It is an undeniable fact that like the Russians before them, Chinese Marxism has destroyed the Chinese environment, while American capitalism has created the high living conditions here necessary for our citizens to expect environmental protection.
Capitalism protects the environment, while Marxism and communism destroy it through unbridled industrialism to buoy up their ruling elites.
Today, on Earth Day, the best thing we can do is to re-open the American economy and create the kinds of high quality living conditions here that incentivize environmental protection. Protect the world’s environment by repatriating American jobs from their thirty-year hiatus in China. Demonstrate to Americans that we can all enjoy high quality environmental protection without sacrificing our economy on the false altar of human caused climate change..or a Chinese virus whose effects are felt locally but whose costs are being applied equally everywhere across the United States.
