Posted on 11/28/2011 5:17:43 PM PST by marktwain
On Black Friday, several stores of outdoor sports outfitter Cabela's gave away guns. And have you heard the one about the gun club offering photos with Santa and ammo?
Guns, always popular in the US, have become even more so in a slumping, anxious economy. No wonder, as a new report exposes, a New York City-based capital management form has been buying up as many gun brands as it can get its hands on.
The gun-loving conglomerate, Freedom Group, now sells more than 1.2 million guns a year, notching $40 billion in yearly revenue. (That's more than Coca-Cola, by the way.)
Benefitting from the rise in gun sales are the gun accessories industry. But one such brand faces a huge uphill marketing challenge, burdened with severely tight regulations, even for the gun industry. The brand's answer? An education campaign called "Silencers are Legal."
The Silencers are Legal campaign aims to inform as many consumers as possible that "Yes, silencers are legal in beautiful, constitution-upholding states, just not in Minnesota."
For starters, this is something that many people probably do not actually know. While it's understandable that one would assume a silencer was illegal based on general logic about its applications, it turns out the device is legal in almost every state. (See above.) Indeed, as the site announces: "Over 27,000 silencers a year are purchased by civilians, but most U.S. citizens don't know that silencers are legal."
But buying a silencer is also not as simple as buying, say, a, AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle or an extended 33-round magazine for a Glock. There is paperwork. The site's FAQ section takes users through the ins and outs of silencer ownership including state-to-state transport and the "tax stamp."
The site also serves as an advocacy vehicle, teaching visitors that not only is owning a silencer your right under the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, but also how to contact their respective Congressional representative "to tell them you would like the laws to change."
The site is a project of Silencerco, a Utah brand founded in 2008 "with the intent to create the best silencers by thinking outside the box and by solving problems in unconventional ways." Silencerco's first product was a silencer called the 22Sparrow, which won the brand great dealer attention.
The Silencers are Legal marketing push is just another marketing angle for Silencerco, which has already cornered social media with a Twitter feed and a YouTube channel that demonstrates a little humor with programs like "How Loud Is It?" The latest episode compared "a SS 22Sparrow Suppressor with a slap in the face."
The brand now offers more than one silencer, including the Osprey. And while the brand's core product may seem wildly different from most consumer offerings, the challenges facing the brand (educating consumers) are exactly the same.
Take the muffler off your car-illegal.
Put a muffler on your gun-illegal.
Don’t ya just love government?
Muffler on lawn-mower shows that person IS VERY BAD!
He wishes you HARM.
I know if I had to fire my AR-15 inside my home in self defense that I would suffer severe hearing damage. My ears still ring after range time with plugs and Muffs. No idea how our soldiers manage that.
Suppressors get people thinking James Bond silent. Nothing could be further from the truth. Firearms are still plenty loud with them and hearing protection is still recommended.
Outside of the unconstitutional aspect of the bureaucratic hurdles to ownership the argument could easily framed as a public health issue in my view.
If you did try it you’d be committing a Federal felony and risk 5 years in prison and a very hefty fine.
Adrenaline burst during fight or flight takes care of that for you, the gun fire can sometimes be reduced to a pop noise or nothing at all.
Can have the same effect when out hunting.
Not that I’m disagreeing with that.....
But how did you get the moniker, “Deaf?”
Silence is golden but, duck tape is silver.
only if one didn't bother to engage oneself in some rather basic logic
Their sales are obviously not all gun-related. If they were, they're getting an average of $33,333 at wholesale per gun. My guess is that this guy is making up a lot of the article out of thin air.
Out at my place in SW Nebraska and listening to a Kansas radio station when an ad came on from a gun store announcing that it is the silencer sales leader for Kansas. I had a tear in my eye, both from joy and the fact that I’m stuck in the People’s Republic of Illinois.
I LOVE my silencer! Got it fitted for a cz-75b, 9mm. Took 4.5 months to get the silencer, but almost one whole year to get the threaded barrrel. It’s a blast, though. Well, maybe not a “blast”!
Something else to note about sound suppressors, the correct term for “silencers”.
The US leads the rest of the world by far on sound suppressor technology. No other nation can compete with the rate of technological advancement that has been achieved here in the US. A sound suppressor designed and marketed today will be outdated within six months. That isn’t to say that it doesn’t work, but the market demand for high quality and advancements such as smaller sizes, better sound reduction, etc. have made the suppressor industry one of the most innovative in this nation.
Sadly, we are stagnant when it comes to full auto and select fire weapons due to the lack of foresight and literal treasonous intent of those that passed the Hughes Amendment in 1986. We are now quite a bit behind the rest of the world in select fire small arms technology. It is now not a political issue, it’s a matter of national security.
Repeal the Hughes Amendment before we end up looking down the the barrels of our enemies guns that make our M16 look like a cap lock rifle.
Thanks for the info on the protective effect of andrenolin DS. I wouldn’t hesitate to shoot of course but is always been in the back of my mind when thinking things through that the noise generated is going to be intense and dangerous.
***I am still wanting to try out the plastic pop bottle I saw on the Borne Indentity. *****
I have in my articles from gun magazines a test of using a soda bottle. It actually works for a dozen or so rounds. Back in the 1980s there was a device made to attach a soda bottle to a firearm. The devise cost way less than the BATF tax of $200.00 you were required to pay.
Suppressors are very common in the UK. Completely legal and nearly demanded so as to keep the countryside serene.
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