“Gun-Crazy Business Models”: Beretta USA Teaches Us How Not To Run Your Corporation
We often think of business leaders as hard-nosed pragmatists, guided by dollars and cents with little regard to emotion. But the truth is that corporate executives are human just like the rest of us. They can be as irrational as anyone, and frequently make business decisions on the basis of things like spite.
So it is that the gun maker Beretta USA has decided against expanding operations into West Virginia, despite heavy lobbying from state officials, because, as the Charleston Gazette reports, “they say Sen. Joe Manchin’s push to expand background checks makes the state less stable for their business.” Perhaps the folks at Beretta don’t quite understand what a senator does, or how laws passed (or in this case, not passed) by Congress actually work. If Congress were to pass a background check bill for the country, it wouldn’t make the state of West Virginia any more or less “stable” for the gun business than any other state.
And after all, business is booming. It isn’t that more Americans are buying guns (gun ownership is on a steady long-term decline), but that those who do own guns are buying more and more of them. That’s why companies like Beretta have forged such a close alliance with the National Rifle Association. The NRA tells its constituents that the country is about to descend into a Mad Max-style apocalypse and that politicians will be confiscating their guns any day, so they rush out to buy more, and the gun manufacturers reap the profits.
A new background check law might help keep guns out of the hands of some people who shouldn’t have them, but it probably wouldn’t hurt Beretta’s bottom line one bit. They’re in a business that has gone nowhere but up. Nevertheless, like other gun advocates, they want to think of themselves as oppressed, kept down by mean politicians in their crusade for liberty. But wherever they decide to move those couple of hundred jobs, they’ll be just fine.
And by the way, in the six and a half months since the Sandy Hook massacre, roughly 5,600 Americans have been killed with guns.
By: Paul Waldman, Contributing Editor, The American Prospect, July 1, 2013
“Sales And Profits”: Why The NRA Is Scared Of The New Manchin-Toomey Background-Check Compromise
The NRA may end up regretting the “A” rating it gave to Pat Toomey. Minutes after the Republican senator from Pennsylvania and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) revealed their new bipartisan background-check bill on Wednesday morning, the NRA released a statement denouncing background checks as ineffective and unfair to gun owners.
Gun-control proponents have been watching Toomey and Manchin carefully to see if they’d be able to reach a compromise. Now that they have, the NRA faces one of its most daunting challenges yet.
Why is this announcement such a big deal?
Because this political coalition actually has a fighting chance of passing this piece of gun-control legislation. Manchin’s home state of West Virginia ranks fifth in the nation in gun ownership, according to Guns and Ammo, so his support for the bill might just convince reluctant gun owners to get behind the measure. Toomey, for his part, is thought to bring with him the votes of 13 House Republicans from his home state of Pennsylvania. He did carefully note, though, why he supports the checks: “I don’t consider criminal background checks to be gun-control,” said Toomey. “It’s just common sense.”
Greg Sargent of The Washington Post marvels at the political power of “two ‘gun rights’ Senators — one a Republican, and one a red state Democrat, both with A ratings from the NRA — jointly calling for real action on guns, and describing it as a moral imperative on behalf of our children.”
What’s in the bill?
It’ll expand background checks to gun shows and online sales. As of now, only sales from licensed gun dealers require background checks, which leaves out 20 to 40 percent of all gun sales, according to The New York Times. The senators’ proposal does not, however, include a background-check requirement for private sales and transfers of firearms between family members.
The bill also mandates record-keeping of background checks by licensed dealers, which law enforcement officials say “are needed to ensure that the rules are followed and to help trace weapons used in crimes,” according to Bloomberg.
Why does the NRA hate it?
Here’s what the group said in opposition to the legislation:
Expanding background checks at gun shows will not prevent the next shooting, will not solve violent crime and will not keep our kids safe in schools … The sad truth is that no background check would have prevented the tragedies in Newtown, Aurora or Tucson. We need a serious and meaningful solution that addresses crime in cities like Chicago, addresses mental health deficiencies, while at the same time protecting the rights of those of us who are not a danger to anyone. [via TPM]
While it’s difficult to say whether this new proposal would thwart the next shooter, what is pretty clear is that, according to a new Quinnipiac poll, 91 percent of Americans (and 88 percent of Americans in gun-owning households) do favor universal background checks. John J. Donohue, a law professor at Stanford, argues on CNN.com that the NRA continues to oppose the measure because they “don’t want anything that interferes with total gun sales and profits.” The organization also has insinuated that universal background checks are “a first step toward a more sinister goal,” namely the confiscation of firearms by the U.S. government, which, as The Week columnist Paul Brandus points out, is illegal.
What’s probably most worrisome to the NRA, though, is that the Toomey-Manchin bill could be the most serious push to expand current laws that the U.S. has seen in a long time.
By: Keith Wagstaff, The Week, April 10, 2013
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