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Why America must get the British OUT of the American Gun Industry, and OUT of America's Middle East Military Planning (Oct. 25, 2007) The official FBI NICS figures show that firearms sales continued to boom in July. On a same month comparison: NICS was 561,358 in July 2005, 631,156, in July 2006, and 757,884, in July 2007. There was a 12.5% increase comparing July 2005 to July 2006. Comparing July 2006 to July 2007 there was a 20% increase. America's 58,000 FFL holders are on-track to sell 12,500,000 firearms in 2007. Firearms spark the sale of thousands of other firearms/hunting items: ammo, scopes, leather, cleaning equipment, and so forth. Firearms manufacturers can easily figure out their "2007 market share" by dividing their gun production into total 12.5 million gun sales by FFL holders. For example, if a firearms manufacturer will sell 500,000 guns in 2007, that means they have four percent (4%) of the FFL's 2007 firearms sales. Last month in this column, I reviewed some of the facts about the SHOT Show. Whatever I said in that column hit some nerves because I received some hysterical phone calls. Nobody said that the numbers mentioned in my column were factually wrong. In my view, the hysterical calls were all about the same issue. Some people were foaming at the mouth over the idea that their free trips to the Las Vegas casinos might end. Trips that are either paid for by their company, and/or are tax write-offs. Probably these are some of the millions of suckers who are "trying to get even" in Vegas. No argument from me, it's wonderful to take a vacation on somebody else's money, and/or have an excuse to write it off as a business expense. I'll be honest, if somebody wanted to send me to Paris for a week, and with everything paid for by somebody else, I'd say YES. I'd be happy to go. I totally 100% agree with the idea that free parties and trips paid for by somebody else are fun. It's easy to spend somebody else's money. As to Las Vegas, a lot of people love it. I know a person here in Florida, the father of one of my daughters past boyfriends. He's always thinking about is next trip to Vegas. Like a lot of people, he's hocked on gambling. Personally, I'm mathematically literate so I don't gamble in casinos. I'm happily married, so I'm not going to Vegas for the 80 pages of female and male prostitutes in the Las Vegas Yellow Pages. If I never went to Las Vegas again it definitely would not bother me. My business point is this, YES; the SHOT Show on one hand is a very nice party. If you're into gambling, sex, 24/7 floorshows, always open bars, etc. there's no place better than Vegas. It has ever vice and perversion imaginable. However, the SHOT Show party costs our firearms/hunting industry (taking in all the costs which is the honest way to figure things), the SHOT Show party costs our industry 250 million dollars a year, ($250,000,000). My bottom line point is that it's a party our firearms industry CANNOT afford. A product or service has no meaning without a price. If somebody asked me, "How'd you like a nice steak dinner with a bottle of good wine?" My question would be, "How much?" If the answer was, "$15." I'd say, "Sure, bring it on." If the answer was, "$150." If say, "No thank you." If the answer was, "$250 but somebody else will pay for it." I'd say, "Sure, I'll take it." The SHOT Show is like the $250 steak dinner. All the people who I spoke to and said that the SHOT Show was great - they were NOT paying for it. In my opinion, the worst thing about the SHOT Show is that it's an excuse to NOT do anything else. In my view, it's like a giant dead elephant in the middle of the road. It's a four day party once a year, and than an excuse to take it easy for the other 361 days of the year. Our firearms industry has NO lobby in Washington D.C., no public relations people - NOTHING. For an industry to NOT have full time lobbyists and PR people in Washington D. C. is more than just stupid, it's insane. For an industry that is highly regulated, like the sale of guns, and is thus dependant one way or the other on government laws. To not have full time lobbyists in Washington D.C. is long-term suicidal. Why are they no full time lobbyists and PR people in Washington D.C. for the firearms industry? Because the SHOT Show sucks up all the money, and sends the money to England. Factually, one thing the SHOT Show is not. It's not a show for firearms retailers. There are only 5,000 people with an FFL in their name who have been at recent SHOT Shows. With the general economy turning down in 2008, 2009 and probably beyond, and with the majority of FFL holders east of the Mississippi, my prediction is that firearms dealer attendance in Las Vegas will go even lower. Out of the 58,000 FFL holders in America. Out of those 58,000 total FFL holders, some 53,000 (91%) do NOT go to any SHOT Show. For firearms dealer attendance, the SHOT Show has already collapsed. On the SHOT Show floor, there are people who have "Buyer" badges. Think about it, EVERYONE in the world is a "Buyer." Spend $4 for a few business cards that say you're a sporting goods store, and pay your attendance money to Reed, and you can get into the SHOT Show. In my opinion, having the SHOT Show during Mardi gras and Super Bowl weekend (Feb. 2-5 2008) is something of a con game. Like, let's hide the SHOT Show in a sea of hot bodies so the exhibitors won't notice that the FFL holding gun dealers are NOT there. WHAT'S THE PROOF OF ONLY 5,000 FFL HOLDERS AT SHOT? Reed Elsevier, the non-American Corporation that is the owner and controller of all of the SHOT Show's contracts, bank accounts and money, sells the SHOT Show attendance list. Reed Elsevier has sold the SHOT Show attendee list for 15 years. There have only been about 5,000 FFL holders at any SHOT Show for the last five years. If you want a copy of the official 2007 SHOT Show attendee list, on the SHOT Show's letterhead that proves only 5,000 FFL holders attend SHOT, fax us a request at 954-463-2501 and we'll fax you the SHOT Show's official attendee list by job category. Yes, there have been and will be 45,000 hot bodies on the floor of the SHOT Show. The SHOT Show is a giant party for manufacturers and middlemen. A giant $250 million dollar party that does almost nothing that isn't being done already, or could not be done better for less money. Manufactures: do you really need to spend $250 million dollars per year to talk to your distributors and/or to your reps? Is it worth $250 million to talk to your friends at other companies, and to talk to the media people? You're talking to all of these people, all during the year, anyway. Right? There is one group you are NOT talking to at SHOT - the FFL holders. That's because 91% of the FFL holders will not at any SHOT Show. There are so many things our industry needs that are in my opinion blocked by the SHOT Show. For example, a short time ago the newspaper association opened a First Amendment Museum in Washington D.C., directly on Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the Capital building. The newspaper association put the First Amendment in stone, in big letters, on the front of the building. Congressman and White House staffers are constantly traveling up and down Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the Capital Building, and they constantly see the First Amendment as a reminder. The building also houses the newspaper association's full time lobbying office that is staffed by full time lobbyists and PR people. The cost of the Museum/lobbying-office was $500 million dollars. I told my friend and he said, "Holly cow, that's a lot of money, our firearms industry can't afford something like that." Stop and think, if the American firearms industry used the money that's wasted on only two SHOT Shows, our American gun industry would have the $500 million dollars to do the same thing. Instead, our firearms industry money goes to make the English billionaires at Reed richer, and the casinos richer. In my opinion, the rich English at Reed do not especially like Americans, and don't think common people should own firearms. In my opinion, the SHOT Show is NOT a help to private firearms ownership in America. In my opinion it's a major detriment. The concerned firearms owners of America SHOULD start to write manufactures and ask them, "Why are you wasting $250 million dollars every year on a big party when the gun industry has ZERO full time lobbyists in Washington?" Let me inform you about how the British operate. Let's go back to the early 19th century when the British had already taken over almost all of India. "Hi, were the British and were here to take care of you." Sound familiar? That's also the motto at the SHOT Show. The British wanted what they've always wanted, money. The British for 500 years have looked for ways to permanently take wealth away from people outside of England, and bring that wealth back to England. This is what our American Revolution was all about. The British said that America's wealth was going to England, and America's founding fathers said, "No!" In my opinion it's time to say "no" again by just saying "no" to the SHOT Show. So, the British had India, they had 30 million Indian farmers who would work for the equivalent of .25 cents a month. The challenge for the British was to find something to grow that they could make tons of gold or silver from, and bring the precious metal back to England. Remember, all "money" back then was still real: gold, silver, copper, etc. The cash-crop answer the British came up with was - poppies for opium. The British started planning tens of thousands of acres of poppies in India (using their de facto slave labor), and they started selling the opium in China. China, for 4,000 years, had been one of the richest countries in the world. Remember, everyone was still on the precious metals standard until 1972. President Nixon took America off the gold standard in 1972, and the rest of the world followed. Chinese money in the 1800's was 80% silver based. For thousand of years the silver had stayed inside (and circulated inside) of China. That's one of the reasons why China wanted to remain closed. The Chinese restaurant owner would pay the Chinese farmer for ducks with silver coins. The farmer would pay his Chinese landlord with the silver coins. The landlord would eat at the restaurant, and pay with the silver coins and so forth all over China. All the silver stayed inside of China, circulated inside of China, and kept the Chinese economy going for thousands of years. Enter the British. They start selling opium in China. Hey, great-stuff, makes you feel just wonderful and it's tons of fun. Just like the SHOT Show, which in my opinion is the American firearms industry's opiate. The Chinese government sees the British for what they really are, drug dealers. The Chinese government tried to stop the drug sales. In 1839 the Chinese government sized over three million pounds of opium in British warehouses in China, and threw the opium into the ocean. Much like America's "Tea Party," the British government declared war on China, the "Opium War" 1839-1842. With a vastly superior navy, the British defeated the Chinese Navy. The Chinese were forced to open five ports to the British drug dealers, including Canton and Shanghai, and were forced to ceded Hong Kong to the British as a base for British operations. The British drug trade went into high gear and started sucking silver out of China. In 1856 the Chinese government out of desperation, once again tried to stop the drug trade and the out flow of silver. The British Army marched to Peking and forced the opening of even more Chinese ports to their drug trade. On their march to Peking, the British army taught the Chinese a lesson. As a "lesson" the British looted and burned the Chinese Emperor's Summer Palace. The Summer Palace had some of the greatest art treasures in the world. There were several fountains in the garden of the Emperor's Summer Palace. One of them had the twelve heads of the animals in the Chinese zodiac. Just this week, Stanley Ho, a Macau businessman, bought one of the looted heads from Sotherby's for $8.84 million and donated it back to the Chinese government. Five of the original 12 heads are permanently lost, along with hundreds of other priceless works of ancient Chinese and Asian art. Starting in the 1830's, the British were selling millions of tons of opium per year in China. The opium was grown in India by farmers who were basically the same as Black slaves in America's South during that same time period. The British sold their drugs for Chinese silver coins. The silver had for thousands of years circulating inside of China, but was then permanently leaving China by the tens of tons. During the 19th century, the British took so much silver out of China, the Chinese economy collapsed. Meantime, so much silver poured into England, and was turned into "pounds sterling," England became the richest country in the world. The British drug trade, and the stripping of China of its silver, and thus the bases of its currency, that precipitated 150 years of chaos, war, revolution and misery inside of China. It was only in the 1980's that China recovered from what was started in the 1830's. So what's the point of the above? In my opinion, the British billionaires who own Reed, and some of them might be the great, great grandsons of the British who ran the Chinese drug trade. In my opinion they are doing basically the same thing to the American gun industry that they did to China. Every year 250 million dollars is taken out of our industry. And for what? For a party! For a fun time opiate. A quarter of a billion dollars every year for a feel-good drug that's of little use. When is the firearms industry going to see? Another example is Ireland. For hundreds of year the British "took care of the Irish." Like they now take care of the American firearms industry via the SHOT Show. During all that time when the British were taking care of Ireland, the wealth of the Irish people was flowing to England. When the English took care Ireland the Irish people were always only a half step above starvation. Finally the Irish got rid of the British "taking care of them." What's the result? Today, 2007, the gross domestic product (GDP) per head in Ireland is $46,000. In England the GDP per head is $36.000. The Irish got rid of the British and grew rich, just like the Indians, Chinese, we Americans, etc. So, what are we waiting for with the SHOT Show? At this years SHOT Show American manufacturers will be paying the British 2000% markups to be in a parking lot? I'm not kidding or exaggerating. It's a 2000% markup on costs for a tent in a parking lot! It makes American's generals in Iraq look smart. Come on Americans, wake up and smell the coffee. In my opinion, for benefits to the gun dealers, the SHOT Show is less than zero. Manufacturers go to a four-day party, and then for the other 361 days of the year say, "I did my thing for the gun dealers. I spent a ton of money on the SHOT Show." In my opinion, one of the reasons why the SHOT Show is popular is because it's an excuse to not do anything for the rest of the year. Ultimately this is a betrayal of the American firearms consumer and a betrayal of the Second Amendment. It's a classic doing what's fun and easy rather than doing what's right. In my opinion, the SHOT Show has no legitimacy. There are no elections. There is no democracy. There is no transparency. Where all of the money comes from and where it all goes is kept a secret. Some of the people on the NSSF Board are good Americans, but it's time for them to realize that they have been used. They are in my opinion, Reed's useful-fools. If they can't make the SHOT Show money figures public, then they should stop letting themselves be used. The real controllers of the SHOT Show are billionaires in England. In my opinion, the "winners" at the SHOT Show are Reed's English billionaires, the billionaire casinos owners, and the anti-gun groups. It's a little off the immediate subject, but related. If you've read this column over the years, you'll remember that four years ago I said America was sucked and conned into the Iraq war. The WMD so called "intelligence" was a set-up. Well, England was one of the three main countries in that set-up. Their military contribution to the Iraq war has been minimal, but the contacts they reestablished in the Middle East will be worth hundreds of billions to England. So now that America is stuck in a ruins war that will destroy the American dollar. How that America's image is dog crap all over the Middle East and the road is open for the British. The British have pulled out of Iraq, and left the American Army slowly turning in the wind at the end of a hangman's rope. This year, 2007, America's 58,000 FFL's (Federal Firearms License holders) will sell 12,500,000 firearms. At an average price of $350 per gun that's $4,375,000,000.00 in gun sales. In addition, the FFL's will also sell four billion dollars worth of shooting and hunting accessories. The collected 58,000 FFL's are an eight billion dollar a year market. Manufacturers, what percentage of that eight billion do you have? Whatever it is, manufacturers are NOT going to find any big increases at the SHOT Show because the dealers are NOT there. The FBI's figures prove that the collected 58,000 FFL holders in America are doing a super job of selling firearms, and also everything connected to firearms. Manufacturers should do themselves a big favor and start talking to the FFL holders, rather than to EVERYONE EXCEPT the FFL holders. Manufacturers should take some of the massive amount of money they are sending to the billionaires in England via the SHOT Show, and use some of that money to communicate FFL holders. The #1 rule of good management is: Do more of what's working and less of what isn't working. American's 58,000 FFL holders are working. They'll sell 12.5 million firearms this year. That's super! On the other hand, The SHOT Show is NOT working. The SHOT Show has already collapsed for FFL attendance. Why don't you prove me wrong? I think of myself as a scientist. My conclusions are based on the facts. Show me facts about the SHOT Show that I'm not seeing, that disprove my views, and I'll change my mind. If you think the SHOT Show is worth $250 million dollars to America's gun dealers. Give me the facts, and I will gladly run your argument. If I've been wrong, I'll apologize in this column. Six months ago I asked Doug Painter, the president of the NSSF, to tell me where I was wrong. I still have NOT heard from Mr. Painter. However, anyone, anywhere, send me your justification for the $250 million - prove me wrong. My email is, Andrew@amfire.com. Sincerely, Andrew Molchan American Firearms Industry www.amfire.com |