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"Guns vs Guitars"

sapi

New member
Joined
Mar 7, 2007
Messages
1,292
The game goes on... thought this was an interesting read so... here it is...

"As part of its ongoing attack on enterprise, the US Government earlier this year busted in to Tennessee-based Gibson Guitars and confiscated millions of dollars worth of private property. The actions were taken in defense of the dubious Lacey Act but, as you’ll read below, the details of the “case” are far from open and shut.

“Guns vs. Guitars,” which first appeared in these pages on September 2, serves as today’s installment of our Daily Reckoning Best of 2011 Series. Please enjoy...


The Daily Reckoning Presents
Guns vs. Guitars

Joel Bowman

If I leave here tomorrow
Would you still remember me?
For I must be travelling on, now,
’Cause there’s too many places I’ve got to see.

— “Free Bird” by Lynyrd Skynyrd

Bullying small and medium businesses, sending armed goons to American factories, confiscating private property, closing down production and harassing business owners and their employees; a curious strategy for nurturing domestic job creation, wouldn’t you say?

The above strategies might seem ludicrous, even downright criminal, to we laypeople, but to government officials, it’s “all in a day’s work.” Take, for example, the latest case of The Feds vs. Gibson Guitars.

Actually, it’s not even a case yet, not officially...but that didn’t stop armed agents from the US Fish and Wildlife Service (these guys have guns?) from raiding two of Gibson’s production facilities in Tennessee and its Nashville headquarters last Wednesday. The agents confiscated “nearly $1 million in Indian ebony, finished guitars and electronic data,” according to the company’s CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz.

“It was a nightmare,” fumed Mr. Juszkiewicz after the incident, “We had people sitting there making guitars. We had no weapons.”

This is not the first time the feds have actively sought to bum Gibson’s vibe (a job-creating vibe, let us not forget — Gibson’s Tennessee factories alone employ over 700 people). The feds last crashed the party back in 2009, seizing a shipment of ebony from Madagascar. They claimed they were there — and, again, armed — to enforce the Lacey Act, a century-old endangered species act that was amended in 2008 to include plants and animals.

But before activists get their patchouli incense sticks in a knot, it’s worth noting that Gibson is not your typical — or even atypical — enemy of the planet.

“Agents seized wood that was Forest Stewardship Council controlled,” Juszkiewicz noted, in a quote carried on the company’s website. “Gibson has a long history of supporting sustainable and responsible sources of wood and has worked diligently with entities such as the Rainforest Alliance and Greenpeace to secure FSC-certified supplies. The wood seized on August 24 satisfied FSC standards.”

Your editor has no idea where the Forest Stewardship Council, the Rainforest Alliance and Greenpeace stand in this particular case...but we’d bet it’s not on the side of the “greedy, seal- clubbing, old growth-uprooting capitalist pigs.”

“We’ve been importing this wood for 17 years, consistently, on a regular basis, with no problem,” Juszkiewicz told Fox News yesterday. “And our competitors continue to use and buy this wood without any problem today.”

Juszkiewicz says the government won’t tell him exactly how — or if — his company has violated that law.

“We’re in this really incredible situation,” continued Mr. Juszkiewicz. “We have been implicated in wrongdoing and we haven’t been charged with anything,” he says. “Our business has been injured to millions of dollars. And we don’t even have a court we can go to and say, ‘Look, here’s our position.’”

It’s also worth noting that the relevant law doesn’t actually protect the trees themselves...just how — or, more specifically, where — the wood is finished. It’s perfectly legal for Gibson to use the wood, in other words, it just can’t use its own workers to fashion the wood into a guitar. That work needs to be done in India. Call it “mandatory outsourcing”...from the same people who will next week bring you their ideas on how best to create jobs in America.

In response to their...uh... “treatment,” Juszkiewicz and Gibson have mobilized their supporters via social media networks, encouraging people on Facebook and Twitter to write their representatives and demand action. The company also launched a Twitter campaign under the hashtag:

“ThisWillNotStand.”

Tweeted Juszkiewicz last Friday: “Why is big government spending our money to harm ordinary citizens and small businesses?”

For the record, your editors here at The Daily Reckoning have no political dog in this fight. That a “red state” company is being harassed by a “blue state” administration may or may not be a “fluke.” Either way, the politics of it all is of little interest to us. In the end, we are fans of private action and government inaction, not the other way around.

But since the government insists on acting — and acting in the only vulgar, brutish way it knows — we’ll return the favor and harass them a little...peacefully, without guns, in the only way we know.

As you probably already know, next week Obama is scheduled to deliver his much-lauded “Jobs Speech.” We are already getting a flavor of what it might contain as advice from tenured economics professors, leading experts and other well-degreed blowhards begin seeping into the pages of the mainstream press. Unsurprisingly, the proposed solution to having over-spent and under-saved is...you guessed it...more spending!

Here’s a snippet from The Huffington Post:


At the top of many to-do lists is government spending into the tens of billions of dollars to finance large-scale public works projects, a strategy that could address a gaping mismatch: Nearly 14 million Americans are officially out of work, yet a great deal of work needs to be done, from repairing dilapidated roads and bridges, to retrofitting government office buildings with energy-efficient infrastructure.
Gary Burtless, a former Labor Department economist and now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, chimed in, “If the government spends the money directly on government-funded projects, that puts people on payrolls.”

And here’s Pavlina R. Tcherneva, an economist at Franklin & Marshall College, echoing Mr. Burtless’ brilliance, “We still have mass layoffs in those [manufacturing and construction] sectors. It seems very obvious that we can absorb large numbers of workers in those sectors for the public good.”

Ah yes...it’s all so obvious! More spending!...More public works!...More government involvement! You know, because all this worked so very well for the country with The New Deal...

Following the above logic, the government ought to spend billions of dollars it doesn’t have undertaking projects it has no demonstrable skill in completing simply to “put people on payrolls.” Heck, why stop at billions? Hasn’t academia heard? Billions are for wimps. Trillion is the new figure du jour. Why not pay every un- or under- employed American a thousand bucks a minute to scrape gum off the sidewalk? Think of the boost to GDP! Think of the payroll numbers! Think of all that “public good!” And think of all the Chinese-made trinkets and Indian-fashioned guitars those people could then buy with their million-dollar bank balances!

One is left to wonder: with thinkers like these, who needs idiots?

Joel Bowman
for The Daily Reckoning

[N.B.: Lynyrd Skynyrd guitarist, Allen Collins, used a Gibson Firebird, and later switched to playing a Gibson Explorer. Starting in late 1977, he also occasionally used a double-cutaway Gibson Les Paul Junior.]"
 

Doc Sausage

Well-known member
Joined
Nov 21, 2006
Messages
1,707
A lot has been said on this subject. Even on the LPF. The irony for me is, that for years, in addition to guitar collecting, I collected guns. Conflicting state and federal laws - that were constantly changing - all but forced me to abandon gun collecting. I always jokingly said, "No jackbooted thugs want to knock down my front door and take my guitars." Not so sure now.:wah
 

j45

Active member
Joined
Jun 14, 2002
Messages
9,081
Don't know much about guns but I do know you can buy them all day long face to face with no paperwork here out of the paper. Check bayoushooter.com for the classifieds. The drummer I work with shows up with a different gun or two every week. A couple weeks back put a holster on each hip and sported a pair (he doesn't have a concealed license and looks/dresses nothing like a cop/security) wild west style right down the crowded downtown mid-day side walk for three blocks then proceded to walk the also active halls freely as his drums load in an eight story upscale theater/office complex visibly armed with loaded hand guns and didn't land a second glance for the duration. I guess you really can do that here.....
 

vintage58

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 13, 2003
Messages
3,958
Kind of off-subject.... but, speaking of Tennessee and guns, below is a link to a rather horrifying news story that happened last week here in my own neck of the woods. Granted, the lady in question was probably not exactly being the sharpest knife in the drawer to do what she did, but with plenty of violent felons routinely being set free by a legal system that does not seem to possess any common sense, the prospect of this lady being locked up for over three YEARS is the surest sign I've yet seen of a justice system that does not know its fucking bloated ass from its self-righteous elbow:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/pistol_whipped_at_wtc_1x32hgT52UNhxkP36ZYAgJ
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Joe Ganzler

Active member
Joined
Jul 18, 2001
Messages
6,911
Firstoff, let me say that I am STILL in shock about what happened to Gibson with respect to their wood/inventory being SEIZED, yet no charges filed against them - this is like a bad dream!

Having said that, the liberal media has certainly had a FIELD DAY over the fact that these agents were "armed with AUTOMATIC weapons". As a matter of clarification, virtually every Park Ranger is "allowed" to carry a weapon, though most don't. Fish & Game agents routinely get into situations where they damned well BETTER be armed; that's just a fact! And as far as the "automatic weapons" thing is concerned, this is just typical media sensationalism - most journalists just repeat this catch phrase without even really KNOWING what an "automatic weapon" really IS (or more importantly, what it ISN'T!). By definition, an automatic weapon is one whereby the ignition of the primer by the (striking) firing pin causes the usual controlled explosion in the chamber of the weapon, NOT ONLY expelling the bullet on its designated course, but AUTOMATICALLY 1). cycling the spent (empty) cartridge OUT of the weapon, and AUTOMATICALLY 2). loading another cartridge in the firing chamber, EACH TIME THE TRIGGER IS PULLED. That is correctly referred to as a "SEMI-automatic weapon", which is the MAJORITY of all handguns sold/in use today. Somewhere along the way, some smarmy journalist dropped the "Semi" from the description, and away they ALL go, like the lemmings that they ARE! Sorry - that's just one of my pet peeves...:rolleyes:

Unlike guitars, guns are selling like - guns! No slowdown in THAT economy! I go to the range weekly and run 100 rounds through one of my 10 AUTOMATIC handguns, and I'm legal to carry concealed in 38 States. Having said that, I rarely DO carry - in most situations, I just don't see the need for it. It IS a nice option to HAVE however, and I'm glad that I live in a State that allows it, glad that I went through the training and trouble to get a Concealed Carry Permit, and glad that the USA still ALLOWS such a thing in most States. I wonder if Henry has gotten HIS CCP yet...:ganz
 

Joe Ganzler

Active member
Joined
Jul 18, 2001
Messages
6,911
Kind of off-subject.... but, speaking of Tennessee and guns, below is a link to a rather horrifying news story that happened last week here in my own neck of the woods. Granted, the lady in question was probably not exactly being the sharpest knife in the drawer to do what she did, but with plenty of violent felons routinely being set free by a legal system that does not seem to possess any common sense, the prospect of this lady being locked up for over three YEARS is the surest sign I've yet seen of a justice system that does not know its fucking bloated ass from its self-righteous elbow:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/pistol_whipped_at_wtc_1x32hgT52UNhxkP36ZYAgJ
.
.

THIS story is the reason why it PAYS to go through the actual concealed handgun carry class/classes. As a result, I bought a book that quotes the carry laws in EVERY State, and one I refer to EVERY time I travel out of State w/a weapon. She fucked up, she's a moron, and she deserves to be punished - it's just THAT simple! Carrying a gun is a VERY serious responsibility, just like driving a car. You break the law behind the wheel, pleading "ignorance of the law" doesn't get you far - and why SHOULD it?! Regrettably, many States do NOT require you to take handgun safety classes before carrying - now THAT should be the law!
 

vintage58

Well-known member
Joined
Apr 13, 2003
Messages
3,958
THIS story is the reason why it PAYS to go through the actual concealed handgun carry class/classes. As a result, I bought a book that quotes the carry laws in EVERY State, and one I refer to EVERY time I travel out of State w/a weapon. She fucked up, she's a moron, and she deserves to be punished - it's just THAT simple! Carrying a gun is a VERY serious responsibility, just like driving a car. You break the law behind the wheel, pleading "ignorance of the law" doesn't get you far - and why SHOULD it?! Regrettably, many States do NOT require you to take handgun safety classes before carrying - now THAT should be the law!
I totally agree with all the points you're raising here. When my girlfriend told me about this news story earlier this morning, this was pretty much the same reaction that I had to it. I basically said, Look, it's one thing if a person makes a left turn at an intersection where a left turn is not allowed, and then gets pulled over and chooses to go with the whole "Hey, I'm from out of state and I didn't know" defense. In fact, I remember being in traffic court once to contest one such offense, and the guy whose hearing immediately preceded my own was up before the judge, and he tells the judge, "Look, I'm from Connecticut, I didn't realize you can't make a left turn off of 42nd Street." So the judge replies back, "Well, I don't know how you do things in Connecticut, but this is New York City, so you're guilty," and then bangs his gavel, and that was it for that particular defendant.

Anyway, that's bad enough — i.e., if a person is not going to fully educate himself or herself when it comes to traffic laws. BUT — and this is where I totally agree — when it comes to gun ownership, it is (unfortunately or not) on the GUN OWNER to know everything there is to know. And that's because, as you said, gun ownership is obviously a quite serious thing. So, while I feel very sorry for the lady in the news story, I generally would have to put her in the "What the HELL were you thinking" category....
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