Gun Baby Gun: A Bloody Journey Into the World of the Gun (57 page)

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Authors: Iain Overton

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66
.

The lobbyists also turned their attention to the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) – a body that invests $30 billion into medical research every year. A 2011 act had a rider that stated no NIH funding ‘may be used, in whole or part, to advocate or promote gun control’.

67
.

Ulysses S. Grant, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy (the lone Democrat), Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. The elder Bush resigned from the NRA in
1995 after LaPierre’s attack on federal agents in the wake of the Oklahoma City tragedy:
http://www.nytimes.com/1995/05/11/us/letter-of-resignation-sent-by-bush-to-rifle-association.html

68
.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/18/pro-gun-groups-donated-senators

69
.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/05/01/12591/gun-lobbys-money-and-power-still-holds-sway-over-congress

70
.

http://www.cpsc.gov/en

71
.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/01/27/guns-children-hospitalizations/4796999/

72
.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/11/guns-child-deaths-more-than-cancer/2073259/

73
.

They were later to change the date:
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/12/16/guns-save-lives-day_n_4452075.html

74
.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7056245.stm

75
.

For more on this, visit:
https://aoav.org.uk/2014/15-years-since-columbine/
.

76
.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/when-australians-gave-back-their-guns/2013/08/23/108458dc-0c09-11e3-8974-f97ab3b3c677_story.html

77
.

It is not just mass shootings that have been impacted. At that time Australia’s firearm mortality rate per population was 2.6 per 100,000. Today the rate is under 1 in 100,000, less than one-tenth the US rate. Sources: the Australian Bureau of Statistics and the US Center for Disease Control. These are for all gun deaths – homicide, suicide and unintentional. If you just focus on gun homicide rates, the US outstrips Australia thirty-fold.

78
.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/social-issues/newtown-divided/how-the-gun-rights-lobby-won-after-newtown/

79
.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/29/guns-in-school_n_4174071.html

80
.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-08/us-rush-on-guns-triggers-shooting-supplies-shortage/5507752

81
.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2251762/NRA-condemned-astonishing-response-Sandy-Hook-massacre-calling-schools-arm-themselves.html

82
.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20815130

83
.

http://www.businessinsider.com/nra-practice-range-app-2013-1

84
.

After much criticism, they raised the age to twelve years;
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/nra-shooting-game-no-longer-preschoolers

85
.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-gun-violence-schools-20140610-story.html
;
http://www.businessinsider.com/fbi-says-mass-shootings-are-on-the-rise-in-america-2014-9?IR=T
;
Everytown.org
, a pro-gun law lobby group, listed 72 incidents since Sandy Hook, so the
LA Times
figure is a conservative one.

86
.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10889499/Bulletproof-blankets-to-protect-children-from-tornadoes-and-crazed-gunmen.html

87
.

Watts spent a number of weeks in 1945 in Obersalzberg or Eagle’s Nest, Hitler’s Berghof. While there, he hunted not for Nazis, but for treasure. He collected thousands of items of silverware, uniforms and documents.

88
.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQWb-5nblx4

89
.

http://www.zombiesurvivalcourse.com

90
.

http://www.outdoorlife.com/photos/gallery/survival/2010/03/surviving-undead-zombie-guns

91
.

http://www.cinemablend.com/television/Walking-Dead-Season-4-Premiere-Crushes-With-16-1-Million-Viewers-59862.html

92
.

Dead Snow
is a 2009 film about a ski vacation that goes a bit wrong for a group of medical students as they find themselves confronted by an ‘unimaginable menace’. It cost about $800,000 to make and made about $2 million at the box office alone.

93
.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/11/zombie-fads_n_2852032.html

94
.

http://www.abc-7.com/story/25409465/abc7-extra-zombies-and-guns-in-fla

95
.

http://www.palgrave-journals.com/ipr/journal/v1/n2/abs/ipr201313a.html

96
.

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/05/13/exclusive_the_pentagon_has_a_plan_to_stop_the_zombie_apocalypse

97
.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/21/american-gun-out-control-porter

98
.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a2gCFOtaZPo

99
.

http://www.vpc.org/studies/militarization.pdf

100
.

http://www.nrapublications.org/index.php/11920/obamas-secret-plan-to-destroy-the-second-amendment-by-2016/

101
.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/11/prweb11296403.htm

102
.

To 2.78 million in December, an all-time record and a 49 per cent increase over December 2011.

103
.

G. J. Wintemute, ‘Guns, Fear, the Constitution, and the Public’s Health’,
N. Engl. J. Med
. 358, 2008, pp. 1421–4. Such conclusions are consistent with a study from the Violence Policy Center, based on 2008 data from the CDC. It found: ‘States with higher gun ownership rates and weak gun laws have the highest rates of gun death . . . The analysis reveals that the five states with the highest per capita gun death rates were Alaska, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama and Wyoming. Each of these states had a per capita gun death rate far exceeding the national per capita gun death rate of 10.38 per 100,000 for 2008. Each state has lax gun laws and higher gun ownership rates. By contrast, states with strong gun laws and low rates of gun ownership had far lower rates of firearm-related death.’

Chapter 15: The Manufacturers

1
.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Moby-Dick-Herman-Melville/dp/1494316641

2
.

Reuters was set up the month before.

3
.

Samuel Colt, ‘On the Application of Machinery to the Manufacture of Rotating Chambered-Breech Fire-Arms, and the Peculiarities of those Arms’,
Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers
, vol. XI, session 1851–2 (London: Institution of Civil Engineers, 1852),
http://books.google.com/ebooks/reader?id=QnkDAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&output=reader&pg=GBS.PA13
. Again, thanks to Barbara Eldredge for alerting me to this meeting in her excellent thesis:
http://gundesigndotorg.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/barbaraeldredge_missingthemoderngun.pdf

4
.

This was not a ‘new’ idea – the design had been around for a few years. What was significant was its presentation as a manufacturing design upon the world stage.

5
.

As Colt said on that day: ‘When a new piece is required, a duplicate can be supplied with greater accuracy and less expense, than could be done by the most skilful manual labour, or on active service a number of complete arms may be readily made up from portions of broken ones, picked up after an action.’

6
.

http://gundesigndotorg.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/barbaraeldredge_missingthemoderngun.pdf

7
.

Mass production using interchangeable parts was actually first achieved in 1803 by Marc Isambard Brunel. But this method of working did not catch on in general manufacturing in Britain for many decades.

8
.

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2004/10/04/8186795/index.htm

9
.

http://www.remington.com/pages/our-company/company-history.aspx
.

10
.

Roy G. Jinks and Sandra C. Krein,
Smith & Wesson
(Mount Pleasant, SC: Arcadia Publishing, 2006), p. 9.

11
.

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/12/23/mikhail-kalashnikovak47inventordeadat94.html
;
http://www.theglobalist.com/20-facts-mikhail-kalashnikov-ak-47/

12
.

http://www.forbes.com/global/2003/0331/020.html

13
.

Philip Schreier, Senior Curator at the National Firearms Museum, interview by Barbara Eldredge, 8 November, 2011, National Firearms Museum, Fairfax, VA:
http://gundesigndotorg.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/barbaraeldredge_missingthemoderngun.pdf

14
.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6294242.stm

15
.

http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/weapons-and-markets/producers.html

16
.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/08/28/us-world-firearms-idUSL2834893820070828

17
.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/19/seven-facts-about-the-u-s-gun-industry/

18
.

http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/H-Research_Notes/SAS-Research-Note-43.pdf

19
.

James Bevan,
Rifles
, Research Note No. 38 (Geneva: Small Arms Survey, 2014).

20
.

Peter Batchelor and Kai Michael Kenkel,
Controlling Small Arms: Consolidation, Innovation And Relevance In Research And Policy
, (London: Routledge, 2013), p. 35; it’s been this way ever since President Roosevelt encouraged America to become ‘the great arsenal of democracy’ in Christmas 1940. The US subsequently saw a military-industrial explosion, manufacturing output doubling between 1940 and 1943, and arms production increased eight times between 1941 and 1943, reaching a level that was nearly equivalent to those of Britain, the Soviet Union and Germany combined.

21
.

http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/F-Working-papers/SAS-WP14-US-Firearms-Industry.pdf

22
.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/07/22/news/companies/beretta-guns-move/

23
.

http://www.chuckhawks.com/turkish_invasion.htm

24
.

$11.7 billion in sales and $993 million in profits:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/19/seven-facts-about-the-u-s-gun-industry
;
http://www.ibisworld.com/industry/default.aspx?indid=662
; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said that the number of guns made in the US rose 16 per cent between 2010 and 2011 to 6.4 million guns, and the FBI expects to run 17.8 million firearm purchase background checks in 2012 – up 9 per cent from 2011.

25
.

$688.3 million:
http://www.ruger.com/corporate/PDF/ER-2014-02-25.pdf

26
.

Jeff Knox, ‘Guns: A bright spot in the economy’,
Firearms Coalition
,
http://www.firearmscoalition.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=709:guns-a-bright-spot-in-the-economy&catid=19:the-knox-update&Itemid=144

27
.

Owen Greene and Nic Marsh (eds.),
Small Arms, Crime and Conflict: Global Governance and the Threat of Armed Violence
(London: Routledge, 2012), p. 215.

28
.

http://www.guns.com/2014/05/02/gaston-glock-buys-wife-15-million-horse/

29
.

http://www.billionaire.com/guns/beretta/918/beretta-firearms-going-great-guns

30
.

http://www.history.co.uk/biographies/j-p-morgan

31
.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-24/mikhail-kalashnikov-inventor-of-the-ak-47-dies-aged-94/5173370

32
.

The company Izhmash merged with Izhevsk Mechanical Plant under the new name Kalashnikov Concern;
http://en.ria.ru/military_news/20140207/187298025/Kalashnikov-Concern-Estimates-Operating-Loss-of-50M-in-2013.html

33
.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-05-29/colts-curse-gunmakers-owners-have-led-it-to-crisis-after-crisis

34
.

http://www.metalstorm.com

35
.

http://www.nammo.com/globalassets/pdfs/product-sheets/general/nammo-brochure-2011.pdf

36
.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/feb/15/army-taliban-sniping

37
.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnA9yyE2ma8

38
.

http://www.lehighdefense.com/index.php/our-technology/subsonic-bullets-and-ammunition

39
.

http://avrockwell.com

40
.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/business/how-freedom-group-became-the-gun-industrys-giant.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

41
.

Ibid.

42
.

It then acquired DPMS/Panther Arms, Marlin, H&R, The Parker Gun, Mountain Khakis, Advanced Armament Corp, Dakota Arms, Para USA, Barnes Bullets and TAPCO;
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/27/business/how-freedom-group-became-the-gun-industrys-giant.html?pagewanted=all

43
.

Cerberus has just under $160 million of equity in Freedom Group and 94 per cent ownership;
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-12-18/cerberus-outlay-reviewed-by-pension-after-school-massacre.html

44
.

http://www.freedom-group.com/2013%2010-K.pdf

45
.

The media people listed on the Cerberus company website – Peter Duda and John Dillard – are public-relations men.

46
.

http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2007/12/18/for-cerberus-feinberg-privacy-has-a-price/

47
.

Tom Dias,
Making a Killing: The Business of Guns in America
(New York, The New Press, 2000), p. 11.

48
.

http://www.freedom-group.com/2013%2010-K.pdf

49
.

http://blogs.wsj.com/searealtime/2013/12/10/philippines-poverty-rate-narrows-little-despite-economic-growth/

50
.

http://www.vice.com/print/pr-firms-in-the-uk-are-spinning-stories-for-foreign-dictators-734

51
.

http://www.webershandwick.com/who-we-are/bio/eric-pehle

52
.

http://www.webershandwick.com/who-we-are/bio/leslie-gaines-ross

53
.

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2010/10/16/bushmaster-acr-recall/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook&utm_campaign=acr

54
.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_45/b4202025114499.htm
;
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2012/06/daniel-zimmerman/remington-settles-trigger-suit/

55
.

http://www.bushmaster.com

56
.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/danielfisher/2012/12/18/bushmaster-paid-after-malvo-killings-and-may-yet-pay-again/
;
http://www.crimemuseum. org/crime-library/the-washington-dc-sniper

57
.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/12/26/bushmaster_223_william_spengler_jr_reportedly_used_same_type_of_gun_as_adam.html
;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/25/william-spengler-had-semiautomatic-rifle_n_2362646.html

58
.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2012/12/18/cerberus-capital-owner-steward-health-care-boston-also-owns-maker-bushmaster-rifle-used-newtown-shootings/87mKS2CJNcr2grFPAJMVTK/story.html

59
.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/table-4

60
.

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2012/12/18/cerberus-capital-owner-steward-health-care-boston-also-owns-maker-bushmaster-rifle-used-newtown-shootings/87mKS2CJNcr2grFPAJMVTK/story.html
;
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-rosenthal/cerberus-capital-profitin_b_4072807.html

61
.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/19/newtown-shooting-bush-master-gun

62
.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/company-sell-newtown-gunmaker-article-1.1222849

63
.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7f684114-6032-11e3-b360-00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=uk#axzz34npCSrgX

64
.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9fb20eea-6407-11e3-b70d-00144feabdc0html#axzz3Ehx2zdA7
. And it is not just Cerberus. After Sandy Hook, Smith & Wesson reported sales for that year up by 43 per cent, hitting a record $588 million. Ruger saw net sales up almost 50 per cent at $491.8 million:
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-06-26/gun-business-still-booming-as-anxiety-buying-continues

65
.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-09/gunmaker-tax-breaks-to-lure-jobs-face-renewed-scrutiny.html
. Since 2007 the Group had received some $5.5 million in subsidies and grants.

66
.

http://www.cerberuscapital.com/team/stephen-a-feinberg/

67
.

http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2005-10-02/graphic-bio-stephen-a-dot-feinberg

68
.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/company-sell-newtown-gunmaker-article-1.1222849

69
.

http://littlesis.org/relationship/view/id/203656
;
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/20/pension-fund-investments-firearm-companies
;
http://littlesis.org/person/34771/Stephen_A_Feinberg/political

70
.

http://www.nrapvf.org/news-alerts/2012/09/nra-pvf-endorses-orrin-hatch-for-us-senate-in-utah.aspx

71
.

http://littlesis.org/relationship/view/id/203668
;
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/04/max-baucus-background-checks-retiring

72
.

http://www.bloomberg.com/bw/stories/2005-10-02/theyre-not-telling-quayle-jokes-at-cerberus

73
.

http://www.freedom-group.com/press.htm

74
.

http://www.sportsonesource.com/events/under40/u40winner2009.asp?WID=56

75
.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/georgekollitides/9101447597/

76
.

http://truthaboutguns-zippykid.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/Ana-Lobo-honoree-George-Kollitides-II-Caitlin-Leszuk-courtesy-panacheprivee.com_.jpg

77
.

http://bfanyc.com/uploads/preview_BFA_4089_462024.jpg

78
.

His company certainly sells arms into Africa:
http://www.remington.com/my-account/partners/sales/international-distributors/africa.aspx

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