How many firearm manufacturers are queued up in line to add the miniscule cost of "microstamping" into their manufacuring process in order to satisfy CA law? Will they limit that action to CA sales only? (hardly)
To paraphrase a horrible poster slogan from the 60/70's... What if they passed a law and no one obeyed it?
All it takes is one company or two to start a movement, followed by a clamor and groundswell of the commoners who aren't afraid of cutting off their nose to spite their face because, well, frankly they already have all the firearms they 'need' and are willing to spend their money on maintenance and upkeep of their older possessions (or ammo, must start saving more for ammo).
If CA is the 8th largest economic community in the world, what is their standing percentage of total American Firearms sales? 20%? 25%? More? Less? I wonder what fraction of that unknown is related to semi-automatic handguns?
Ron Barrett stood his ground on one issue (.50 bmg prohibition), then came up with a brilliant alternative. STI is approaching this to fight yet another issue, but unless they manufacture revolvers they have no optional play. They may not be a "real" player anyway, but their statement does give us pause to wonder, "Will SIGSAUER, Beretta, HK, GLOCK and Colt Mfg follow suit? Will S&W and Taurus play along?"
Should the major players boycott the CA State decree, would the rest of the nations gunbuying enthusiasts pick up the now economic defunct CA slack? Or, conversly, should the big boys all decide to play the CA game, will the rest of the American gunbuyers band together to financially bring them to their knees (and senses) ala S&W/HUD agreement?
Perhaps there might be yet another massive American "Boycott" of those companies who comply and they can be driven out of the US economy until they see the error of their CA complying ways (and wouldn't the anti-rights activists love that? There's always that double edged sword thing huh? Doncha hate being backed into a corner? Makes ya mad enough to come out swingin sometimes, if the stakes are high enough)
Do we start writing activist grassroot letters now to the CEO's of the various manufacturers to guage our impact (if any)? Is it too early to get the Gun Blogs/Lobby groups fired up and take the offensive whilst the Heller/DC ban is on everyone's mind?
When the CA AWB took place (yawn) it didn't affect me, I didn't live in CA.
I WAS WRONG THEN NOT TO DO OR SAY ANYTHING! (insert famous Martin Niemoller quote here) But when the 94 AWB took hold nationwide, when the S&W/HUD agreement hit the light of day, people stood up and got extremely serious nationwide. It even got BJ Clinton's attention IIRC.
What does it mean? I dunno. I do remember reading Tamara's blog on Zumbo and things started happening fast... real fast. Immediate like fast. But that was business, not government.
Hmmmm. This is... both. Isn't it?
It'll make for some interesting conversation at the upcoming SHOT show if grassroot activity is noted by the industry in Dec. and Jan.
http://www.shotshow.org/App/homepage.cfm?moduleid=1968&appname=100300 Maybe someone here knows Randy Travis and could ask him to make a comment or two whilst on stage.
Who knows. It might even get the attention of Presidential candidates about a year from now. That might be a good thing.
Ya think?
(notes to self. Need list & addresses of CEO's. Need to get into SHOT in Feb. Need to better organize my ramblings) [edited to add: 80 days to SHOT show]