Re: New Ruger AR-15...
<span style="font-style: italic">FUCK RUGER</span>
<span style="text-decoration: underline">This was written by Neal Knox. It appeared in the 12/1/89 issue of The New Gun Week. </span>
<span style="font-style: italic">
Knox Replies To Comment From Ruger Counsel's
Gun Week, December 1, 1989 </span>
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">"Steve Sanetti says 'I know better' than to ascribe Bill Ruger's
magazine ban proposal to business considerations. Maybe so; I
don't think Bill is by any means 'anti-gun,' nor do I think he
really _wants_ a ban on either guns or magazines (after all, he
got his start as a machine gun designer). But I do think Bill
Ruger is pushing a plan that would protect his business while
affecting only his competitors, and I think he's damaging the
efforts of those of us attempting to stop all proposed bans.
Further, I don't think his actions on this issue, and other
issues in the past, allows him to be described as 'the strongest
supporter of our Constitutional right to keep and bear arms.'
<span style="font-weight: bold">"What I _know_ is that about 9 p.m. the night before Bill sent a
letter to certain members of Congress calling for a ban on
high-capacity magazines he called me, wanting me to push such a
ban.</span> His opening words, after citing the many federal, state and
local bills to ban detachable magazine semi-autos, were 'I want
to save our little gun' -- which he later defined as the Mini-14
and the Mini-30. I'm not ascribing Bill's motives as 'expedient
from a business standpoint;' <span style="font-weight: bold">Bill did.</span>
"While I agree that a ban on over-15 magazines would be
'indefinitely preferable' to a ban on the guns that use them,
that's not the question. Neither I, nor the other gun groups have
ever believed that we were faced with such an either/or choice.
Early last year the NRA legislative Policy committee discussed
various alternatives to the proposed 'assault weapons' ban, and
wisely decided that magazine restrictions wouldn't satisfy our
foes, but would make it more difficult to stop a gun ban.
"I was particularly shocked when I realized Bill was talking
about a ban on possession of over-15-round magazines, rather than
a ban on sales (which is bad enough). I told him that such a law
would make me a felon, for not only did I have standard over-15
magazines for my Glock pistol (a high-capacity which has sharply
cut into Ruger's police business), I have many high-cap mags for
guns I don't even own, and don't even know where they all are.
As I told Bill, after a lifetime of accumulating miscellaneous
gun parts and accessories, there's no way I could clean out all
my old parts drawers and boxes, then swear -- subject to a five
or ten-year Federal prison term -- that I absolutely didn't have
an M3 grease gun mag or 30-round M-2 magazine lying in some
forgotten drawer.
""Bill said (and all these direct quotes are approximate). 'No,
there'd be amnesty for people like you. We have to propose a ban
on possession before they could take us seriously.' He contended
that the public's problem was with 'firepower,' which could be
resolved by eliminating high capacity mags.
"I told him Metzenbaum and Co. would gladly use whatever he
offered, but they weren't about to willingly agree to eliminate
high-cap magazines as a substitute for banning guns; that their
intention isn't to eliminate 'firepower' but 'firearms.'
"Bill finally said, <span style="font-weight: bold">'Neal, you're being very negative about it.'
He got angry, then said 'Well somebody's got to do it; by God I
will.' And the next day he sent his letter to the Hill</span>; <span style="text-decoration: underline">the
evidence indicates a few weeks later he talked SAAMI into
supporting undefined 'regulation' of magazines over-15-rounds</span> --
a vote that might have gone a little differently if any produced
high-capacity magazines as standard for either rifles or pistols.
<span style="font-weight: bold">"I suspect that Ruger and SAAMI's actions are responsible,
directly or indirectly</span>, for the Bush administration's proposal to
ban high-cap mags, but that proposal has been ignored -- except
as evidence that 'the Bush administration and the American
firearms industry recognize there's a problem -- that Americans
shouldn't be allowed to have such guns.'
"Of course, that isn't what Bill Ruger and SAAMI are saying, but
that's the message they're sending. Perhaps it isn't business
expediency to propose banning only that which they don't make, in
an effort to protect what they do make; but it sure can't be
claimed to be in defense of the Second Amendment."</div></div>
<span style="text-decoration: underline">Ruger said to Tom Brokaw:</span>
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">"No honest man needs more than 10 rounds in a gun".
"I never meant for simple civilians to have my 20 or 30 round magazines or folding stock."
"i see nothing wrong with waiting periods".</div></div>
<span style="text-decoration: underline">This letter was taken from the American Handgunner magazine, dated Sept 1992 page 18 </span>
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">"<span style="font-style: italic">The best way to address the firepower concern is therefore not to try to outlaw or license many millions of older and perfectly legitimate firearms (which would be a licensing effort of staggering proportions) but to prohibit the possession of high capacity magazines.
"By a simple, complete and unequivocal ban on large capacity magazines, all the difficulty of defining 'assault rifle' and 'semi-automatic rifles' is eliminated. The large capacity magazine itself, separate or attached to the firearm, becomes the prohibited item.
"A single amendment to Federal firearms laws could effectively implement these objectives." </span>
<span style="font-weight: bold">William B. Ruger
Sturm, Ruger Firearms</span></div></div>