Shareholders tell Ruger to create gun violence report

[DeepSouth]

I think this could get interesting, I don’t see how this is anything other than a no win situation for Ruger. I just wonder what exactly the shareholders are trying to accomplish.

From the article

Ruger shareholders voted Wednesday to require the gun makers board of directors to create a report “on the company's activities related to gun safety measures and the mitigation of harm associated with gun products,” according to internal Sturm Ruger documents.
..
..
“We as shareholders are saying that gun violence is significant enough that you, as a gun company, need to address what your responsibility to gun safety is,” Scanlon told CNNMoney.
..
..
This study isn't the first time Sturm Ruger found itself on the anti-gun side of the debate. Back in 1989 Ruger pushed for a federal magazine size limit. The company at the time was under the control of Bill Ruger.

Read more: https://www.ammoland.com/2018/05/sh...o-conduct-a-gun-violence-study/#ixzz5FACT2TSW
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

 

[armoredman]

How many firearms manufacturers are publicly held and how many are still private? I would expect the publicly traded ones to experience a rash of this as people on the left try to use Soros money to snap up stock and drive them to making squirt guns.

 

[Robert]

The first thread on this topic was closed because folks couldn't stay focused and got off topic quickly. Please don't get off in the weeds and keep things firearms related.

 

[philip brousseau]

perhaps to show that the greater the freedom to carry, the lower the crime rate.

 

[BSA1]

This is not investment advice.

Ruger has 17,445,000 shares outstanding and todays price is $61.6 per share.

My point is it will take investors with deep pockets to force Ruger management to change their business practices.

I think this is much ado about nothing. It is feel good anti-gun copy for the news media.

https://www.nasdaq.com/symbol/rgr/stock-report

 

[Mike J]

Ruger has stated that all it is just going to prepare a report-nothing more. I would wager they would prefer not to do that. If we are really concerned maybe each of us should buy a share of Ruger stock so we can have a vote.

 

[Moparnut]

Could this open the door for possible court cases in the future? I mean, if let's say S&W came out with a report saying their revolvers were found at more crime scenes than anyone else, could that not possibly get misconstrued, by a good lawyer, that they are facilitating elicit sales and crime? Maybe not. IDK. I still thinks it's a bad idea. How about investing in a company you may believe in or may have principles like yours?

Businesses are there to make money not worry about people's feelings.

 

[ilbob]

Ruger has stated that all it is just going to prepare a report-nothing more. I would wager they would prefer not to do that. If we are really concerned maybe each of us should buy a share of Ruger stock so we can have a vote.

you get one vote per share. you have to have a majority of shares to pass a stockholder resolution. appears like some institutional investors with lots of shares voted for the resolution.

 

[Derek Zeanah]

Remember: if you're investing in an index fund, that index fund owns those shares, and it might be possible for Morningstar (for example) to act as a proxy for all the holders of their S&P 500 index product.

It's kind of scary, depending on motivations and how pessimistic you are.

 

[RETG]

I just read another article on this subject and the last line of that article states something I did not know....

"After Dick's Sporting Goods recently said it would pull assault-style rifles and higher-capacity magazines from its shelves — and destroy them rather than return them to their makers — Ruger issued a statement saying, "[We] are disappointed by their recent actions," adding that Ruger firearms won't be in Dick's stores."

I had not read that Ruger had joined in on the Dick's boycott.

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo...e-after-shareholders-back-activist-resolution

 

[patmccoy]

“We as shareholders are saying that gun violence is significant enough that you, as a gun company, need to address what your responsibility to gun safety is,” Scanlon told CNNMoney.

So a report saying their responsibility to gun safety is building guns which function properly, and inclusion of the rules of safe handling of firearms is really all that is needed.

Seems like lots of fuss about very little.

 

[sbwaters]

the mitigation of harm associated with gun products

Ruger management has already given a delightful response in a memo. Showed great integrity and strong belief in the Second Amendment and the legal use of its products.

Any report worth its salt would show that the legal, proper use of its products has mitigated harm.

 

[DeepSouth]

I’ve been assuming the report would be made public, but I was talking with someone today that told me that shareholders frequently ask for reports that aren’t public.

I have no idea how this type of thing works, but he said it could easily be shareholders just wanting to know what type, or to what extent, of liability the company could potentially deal with in the future. Which makes a little sense to me, as their are finical liabilities that are not legal, think public perception.

I still don’t see how this could be beneficial to Ruger as a company, assuming it’s a public document. Anything generally viewed as “positive” will be dismissed as biased, rightfully so imo. While anything even slightly negative will be exaggerated by every anti gun organization out there. I can hear it now... “even their own study says.....”


With all that said, I have doubts this is really a big deal at all. Ruger will not produce a study that is generally negative. And few people will care enough to read it when/if it does come out. I really believe it’s a nonissue, but my near total ignorance of this type of thing feeds into my pessimism, just being honest.

 

[Flechette]

The question that is obvious to me, is why would shareholders demand this report?

As part owners of a gun company they should know that stock they own can only go down when this report is made. At best it would hold even.

Methinks that something is going on behind the scenes. Perhaps a few wealthy investors with voting rights push for the report while buying/selling various options that would make a lot more money than they lost on the stock going down.

I am not a broker, but I think type of stock manipulation would be illegal.

 

[jmorris]

I don’t need a report, they already seem to put a paragraph on their barrels...

 

[Milt1]

Ruger's response:

 

[Nickotym]

"Amalgamated Bank, America’s socially responsible bank," from the first article google gives you for the search term "amalgamated bank ruger" tells it all. This is an activist group that holds just enough shares of Ruger to force them to write the report. They, Amalgamated Bank, want to change the corporate structure of Ruger. Ruger has stated they intend to write a report and nothing more than that. No changes to policy.

this is leftist tactics to try to control something they don't like and nothing more.