You can judge for yourself... Quote from: https://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2017/04/john-boch/springfield-rock-river-illinois-sell-picking-pieces/ "The news of Springfield Armory and Rock River Arms selling Illinois gun dealers and gun owners down the river continues to spread among The People of The Gun. As it should. For those who missed it, we broke the story late Thursday evening. Springfield Armory, Rock River Arms Trade Opposition to Illinois FFL Licensing Scheme for Carve-Out The lobbyist for the Illinois Firearms Manufacturers Association (IFMA), Jay Keller, traded that group’s opposition to the bill in exchange for a carve-out, removing Prairie State firearms manufacturers from the licensing requirements. Two companies provide the bulk of the funding for IFMA: Springfield Armory and Rock River Arms. A whole lot of gun owners see the deal as a sell-out. And they’re telling their friends. This wasn’t the first time gun dealer licensing has come up in Illinois. We beat back a similar bill last year. This year, State Senator Don Harmon needed IFMA to end their opposition to his bill. IFMA’s Keller testified in March at the Illinois Senate Judiciary committee of his willingness to consider dropping the lobbying group’s opposition to the bill if his clients were exempted. As a long-time, dedicated anti-gunner, this wasn’t Senator Harmon’s first legislative rodeo. Like a shrewd negotiator, Harmon happily added a manufacturer and big box retailer carve-out to the bill so he could cobble together the last few votes he needed to get it through the Senate. Keller dropped IFMA’s opposition, providing cover for a couple of wavering Senators to vote for the bill. Sure enough, the bill passed the Senate by a single vote. Some might say IFMA’s change of heart might not have made a definitive difference. It might not have, but then again, if Senator Harmon didn’t think it wouldn’t have gotten him that last vote or two he needed, he wouldn’t have offered the deal. In the end, the timing proved fortuitous to all involved. All except for gun owners and the non-big box store gun dealers who have to live and work in the Land of Lincoln. The biggest tragedy Maybe worst of all, passage gives anti-gunners a win they desperately needed. Today, we have nearly one dozen gun control groups working in Illinois. Half of those are national groups out of Washington, D.C., that have set up shop in Springfield hotels. They’ve come to the heart of flyover country because they know their anti-2A dog won’t hunt back in Washington. They see deep-blue Illinois as a great place to enact more of their gun control schemes. And gun control wins, like this keep the gravy train flowing so they can continue to draw a paycheck and keep on going. Salt in the wound Dennis Reese’s statement to TTAG on IFMA’s deal was insulting. He didn’t say, “Hey, we screwed up. We’re pulling out of IFMA and regret that this happened. We want our dealers and our valued customers to know we won’t ever do anything like this again.” Instead, he said, and I quote: “…We fully support the Second Amendment and stand by it. The Illinois Manufacturers Association will continue to fight and protect not only manufacturers, but dealers and the gun owner as well.” His lobbyist will continue to fight and protect dealers and gun owners? It was his lobbyist who stood aside on a bill that rations everyday Illinoisans to nine firearm transfers per year. That’s not fighting to protect gun owners. That’s rolling over and showing your belly while wagging your tail. If signed into law, the bill his lobbyist declined to oppose will drive many dealers out of business with its onerous and expensive restrictions and requirements. With “support” like that, who needs Everytown? Blowback I’ve spoken with a couple of bigger dealers in Illinois in the past 24 hours. Both are were on their way to selling over a quarter million of Springfield product this year. But they’ve already heard from their customers about the IFMA sell-out. One dealer told me he’s pulling Springfield product from his shelves to give his salespeople a break from carping customers. “So, you’re not buying a bunch of Springfield’s new pistols?” I asked one. “Oh, hell no,” he told me. “I’m not ordering anything Springfield. Frankly, I’m wondering how I’m going to sell my existing inventory.” Another dealer told me he wished Springfield well. But I didn’t detect a lot of love in his words. Meanwhile, over at the Rock River booth at the NRA convention, owner Chuck Larson has professed innocence in the matter. He’s told several industry types that he had no contact with IFMA lobbyist Jay Keller and knew nothing of this carve-out. What’s more, Larson seems genuinely appalled by what happened. Springfield, on the other hand, has gone silent. CEO Dennis Reese hasn’t responded to a request for comment or a further statement beyond the one he released Thursday night. Ben Franklin once said, “If we do not hang together, we shall surely hang separately.” If IFMA had stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the NRA-ILA, the Illinois State Rifle Association, Guns Save Life and the National Shooting Sports Foundation – working as a team to oppose this egregious bill – we’d have had a good chance of depriving anti-gunners of a badly needed win. Instead, we were undercut by a self-serving supposed ally. Maybe the deal was the result of a lobbyist gone rogue. Perhaps a company thought they could pull a fast one and nobody would notice. There’s no way to know for sure. Regardless of who did what, the after-effects of this deal and a legislative loss will be felt far beyond Illinois for some time to come."
Doesn't look real good, but I wanna do a bit more checking. Unlike A LOT of the folks commenting on that article, I'll not be selling any RRA or SA stuff I have. To me that's foolish. If the weps work fine and a person was happy with them just until they read an article. If the article is indeed fact, I can see a boycott and or refusing to do business with those companies in the future, but to sell off good firearms that were purchased before this happened doesn't make sense to me. I would have no problem adding to the 1911 or M1A collection by purchasing used ones from pissed off owners. Not supporting either company that way. My
I have No Interest in selling their products, because of their Political Copout... Just like I did not sell S&W Weapons a few years back, when they made a similar Political Copout. There are many other suppliers that can provide the same, or better, weapons of the same class... I see No Reason to support such folks, with my business....
Illinois is corrupt & democrat (redundant I know) no wonder they apparently played the Illinois game not defending it just the way the game is played. There are some good firearms manufactures there and I have always wondered why they put up with the democrat crap plenty of states will help them with the move like Wyoming and Texas did with Magpul and South Carolina with PTR. http://ptr91.com/news/ptr-to-move-from-connecticut/ Colorado gun law backfires; Wyoming loads up with Magpul deal
Well lets list all the sell out gun companies in the US: ALL OF THEM! Ever hear of the 1968 GUN CONTROL ACT?! They ALL supported that so that the flood of surplus weapons would stop and they would make millions. Turns out they were wrong. The millions of cheap guns got new shooters started and then they bought NEW guns! So they shot themselves in the foot right there. Then of course that brought a flood of OTHER anti-Constitutional gun control laws on it's coat tails. What always amazes me is NO ONE lists Ruger as the biggest sell out in US history! S&W? That was a British toilet maker that sold us out, not S&W, but BILL RUGER was the person who single handedly got the "Assault Rifle Bill" (which he wrote) and "Hi-Cap Magazine Bill" (which he wrote - yes really, it is easy to find with a simple google search) rammed through so he could sell the crappy Mini-30 (and the first few years they were trash!) and as an elitist he felt the unwashed masses did NOT need hi-cap mags. Simply go read what he said about it, that is a near quote! Did Springfield Armory sell us out? I don't know. Rock River Arms? Don't know. But I wouldn't be too amazed if ether/or, or both did. There has always been a faction of FFL (dealer) associations and gun companies that are willing to stab everyone else in the back if they think they can make a quick buck off it. Too many FFLs? Jack the price up to $600 a YEAR (yes, really). One gun insurance scam seller told me if I couldn't afford to pay $5,000 to $10,000 a year to him for insurance, I shouldn't be in business! WHY are there ANY gun companies in Ill? And there are a SLEW of them! For the love of God, WHY? Why NOT move? That goes for gun owners too!
I trust very little of what I read or see that often qualifies as "news" these days. Regardless, I think it's fair to say you'd have a hard time finding any gun manufacturer with squeaky clean hands. Some of these corporations are biding their time and making deals to stay in the green. I do know that no matter where you go you will find people talking trash about Springfield, and that has nothing to do with recent developments. I personally still find their XD line to be of the highest quality, and despite being a competitor to the ubiquitous Glock, they manage to sell. From what I can tell of this legislation, it's meant to restrict transfers and tax for the gun dealer or individuals who transfer to other people more than 9 firearms per year. There are exemptions for transfers to family members and estate liquidations. I don't see any verbiage restricting individuals from buying as many guns as they want. If you think about it, it makes sense. Oh well, in the land of the hopelessly enslaved, very little is what it seems. It doesn't help when some folks write an editorial and make a story into something it really isn't. Next month it will probably be another big gun manufacturer on the chopping block.
By Defender Outdoors | May 3rd, 2017 News broke late last week that Rock River Arms and Springfield Armory were implicated in funding some gun control measures in Illinois. Needless to say, the firearms community is not pleased. Read up on the details of the scandal and then see how each company responded:
From that article, RRA's response to the IFMA's bailing out of opposition. "we were as shocked as everyone else to find ourselves exempted from provisions of SB1657 and that IFMA was no longer opposing that bill, even though RRA still opposed it." Also from the article, Springfield Armory said - “At the time of my initial statement to the media, I was ill-informed of the ramifications of this bill and its detrimental effects to the Second Amendment, which I have personally fought to protect my entire life. I can tell you now, we at Springfield Armory are unequivocally 100 percent against this bill and will continue to work with the NRA and others to ensure that it is defeated,” said Dennis Reese, Chief Executive Officer, Springfield Armory. In short, the article is misleading at the very most by this lead in statement: "News broke late last week that Rock River Arms and Springfield Armory were implicated in funding some gun control measures in Illinois." . Both RRA and SA contributed to the IFMA over time, but that was before the IFMA stopped its efforts to oppose the silly legislation. Neither company should be penalized for this sort of bad information. We were not sold out. Some of the comments following the article seem to be made by low info readers, and the allusion that the companies were willing to "carve out" exemptions is completely unsupported.
They are represented by the Illinois Firearms Manufacturer's Association, IFMA. They both donated to IMFA. An exemption was carved out of the legislation for both manufacturers. They both state they knew nothing about it? Then I guess it would be disingenuous to suggest that perhaps both should sever their relationship with the IFMA or at the very least ask for the resignation of Jay Keller. JMO It is just difficult to understand Keller's motivation ion this.
Keller is a politician, buttering his bread. Worse, he is an Illinois politician. Motivation still in question? Whether or not the companies are still supporting IFMA, I have no idea. POT STIRRING HEADLINE Man takes 11 year old girl from school Story - John Q met his grand daughter at the school bus stop and drove her to her parents house. Gotta luv summa dese stinky piles of what bears do in the woods.
