Saturday, February 20, 2010

Sabre Defense Industries

The Nashville Business Journal reports on the investigation of a gun manufacturer.

Nashville-based gun manufacturer Sabre Defence Industries issued a statement late yesterday saying it is cooperating with federal agents who are investigating “potential criminal misuse of certain non-saleable firearms” manufactured by the company and purchased by Sabre employees.

“Sabre has received information that employee(s) involved in inventory control may have obtained and re-sold some items without appropriate licenses,” reads the company’s statement. “Sabre is and has been cooperating with federal agents in this investigation.”


The company had an FFL license, just like the guy in your local gun shop. And just like many local gun shops, Sabre Defense turned out to be the source of gun flow into the criminal world.

What's your opinion? Is there not enough oversight? Is there too much wiggle-room for these felons masquerading as legitimate employees making money on the side?

What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.

22 comments:

  1. Mikeb says:

    Is there too much wiggle-room for these felons masquerading as legitimate employees making money on the side?

    How many lines of work can you name--including both law enforcement and lawmaking--that are utterly without criminals among their numbers? I'll bet it's around ZERO.

    Why would gun manufacture be any different?

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  2. "What's your opinion? Is there not enough oversight? Is there too much wiggle-room for these felons masquerading as legitimate employees making money on the side?"

    Well, considering that they were busted, and will be prosecuted under the law if convicted, I'd say there is enough oversight in this case.

    -TS

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  3. What Zorro omits, of course, is that the gunloons are pushing to exempt all gun manufacturers from the law.

    Sure, every organization has its crooks; the military, the clergy, the medical profession, you name it. But we don't see any group advocating that we not hold any of these organizations responsible for crimes.

    Except, of course, for the gunloons.

    --Jadegold

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  4. Sabre Defence also supplies the military, so no amount of civilian disarmament or "common sense" measures would have prevented this.
    We need to punish the criminals involved and SD should improve security. That's all we can do.

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  5. Jadegold says:

    What Zorro omits, of course, is that the gunloons [sic] are pushing to exempt all gun manufacturers from the law.

    Sure, every organization has its crooks; the military, the clergy, the medical profession, you name it. But we don't see any group advocating that we not hold any of these organizations responsible for crimes.

    Except, of course, for the gunloons [sic].


    I must have missed any proposal by any gun rights advocacy group (or even any individual) to "exempt all gun manufacturers from the law"--care to provide an example?

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  6. Jade, what law are the "gunloons" looking for an exemtion from?

    The only thing I remember are the unscrupulous lawsuits about criminal misuse of a properly manufactured tool by third parties. Those were made illegal because such cases have no legal standing.
    It's akin to sueing Budweiser over drunk driving.

    So which law, pray tell, are you refering to?

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  7. Oh, Jadegold--by the way, your "point" about advocates of a free, armed citizenry supposedly "pushing to exempt all gun manufacturers from the law," even if it were true (found that example yet?) has little to do with my point about there being criminals in any line of work. Whatever we're supposedly "pushing" for, we clearly haven't gotten there yet, so gun manufacturers currently don't have any more of a Get Out of Jail Free card than any other business does.

    In other words, my response to Mikeb's question about the possibility of there being "too much wiggle-room for these felons masquerading as legitimate employees" of gun manufacturers would not be weakened in the slightest even in the unlikely event that you're not full of crap.

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  8. Jade Gold,

    It has come to our attention that you are using the gunloon trademark.

    This trademark is confusingly and/or deceptively similar to my gunloon trademark and also constitutes a reproduction or imitation thereof.

    In the circumstances, your use of the gunloon trademark will constitute an infringement of our common law rights.

    In the circumstances, we demand that you immediately:

    1. cease all use of the trademark gunloon;

    2. deliver-up for destruction all material to which the gunloon trademark or any other mark confusingly or deceptively similar to our trademark has been applied;

    3. withdraw, cancel and/or delete any corporate names, domain names, trademark applications and/or trademark registrations for or including the gunloon trademark;

    4. undertake, in writing, never in future to make any use of the gunloon trademark without prior written authority from me, whether within any corporate name, trading name, trading style, domain name or otherwise.

    Sincerely,
    THE Gunloon
    http://gunloon.com

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  9. "What Zorro omits, of course, is that the gunloons are pushing to exempt all gun manufacturers from the law."

    Care to defend your "hero" concerning this?

    Baaaaaaahhhhhhh.

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  10. FWM, I don't know about JadeGold, but I love your sense of humor.

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  11. And talking about senses of humor, I love Zorro's new avatar (gravatar, icon, whatever it's called).

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  12. Kevin said, "Sabre Defence also supplies the military, so no amount of civilian disarmament or "common sense" measures would have prevented this."

    Sure it would have. If the ATF would do their job and regularly inspect all manufacturers and sellers of guns, this would be the first thing cleaned up.

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  13. Mikeb says:

    And talking about senses of humor, I love Zorro's new avatar (gravatar, icon, whatever it's called).

    Thanks, Mikeb. With Laci (or Laci's owner--however we're supposed to refer to the author of the "Laci the Chinese Crested" blog) not coming around much any more, the old one was losing it's ability to please me.

    I will say that the new one isn't exactly meant humorously--I have, since early childhood, greatly admired the work of the Reverend Dr. King, although I'm convinced that his non-violent approach only accounted for some of the progress made against racial oppression in the U.S., and I think history bears me out.

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  14. Zorro:

    Nice gravatar. Are you black and dead? Or would you rather that people just confused you with a great american, who is black and dead, so that your gunzparanoia has a sheen of legitimacy?

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  15. Democommie says:

    Zorro:

    Nice gravatar. Are you black and dead? Or would you rather that people just confused you with a great american, who is black and dead, so that your gunzparanoia [sic] has a sheen of legitimacy?


    Don't appear to be either black or dead, Democommie, but thanks for asking.

    My use of Dr. King's photograph is not an attempt to "confuse" anyone about my identity (although I apologize for forgetting about how easily confused you seem to be, and not being more accommodating of your disability)--any more than my use of a photograph of a dog was intended to "confuse" anyone about my bipedal, tailless nature.

    As for "sheen of legitimacy," I think the legitimacy of my position is made more apparent by your rantings against it than by anything I could say or do--thanks!

    Hope that clears things up for you a bit.

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  16. I see the gunloons are forgetting about the NRA's agenda of exempting the gun industry from the law.

    There isn't one law protecting the gun industry but several. Here are a few:

    1. the gun industry is exempt from product safety regulation;
    2. the gun industry is immune from individual lawsuits (this, for example, is especially germane to this topic--if weapons sold by Sabre's employees wind up killing/injuring someone--Sabre cannot be sued even if Sabre was negligent)
    3. the gun industry is immune from any lawsuit even if it willfully breaks the law WRT product distribution.
    4. the gun industry is largely protected from oversight by the ATF.


    Here's a letter from the ABA:

    http://www.abanet.org/poladv/letters/crimlaw/051013letter_guns.pdf

    --JadeGold

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  17. Sorry MikeB, it seems you missed my use of quotations around "common sense". I was refering to the Brady folks idea of ATF reform. Fortunatly it seems that you and I agree on what the ATF's job is supposed to be. Had they been doing that instead of harrassing honest gun dealers, this wouldn't have happened like you say.

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  18. Jadegold says:

    I see the gunloons [sic] are forgetting about the NRA's agenda of exempting the gun industry from the law.

    There isn't one law protecting the gun industry but several. Here are a few:

    1. the gun industry is exempt from product safety regulation;
    2. the gun industry is immune from individual lawsuits (this, for example, is especially germane to this topic--if weapons sold by Sabre's employees wind up killing/injuring someone--Sabre cannot be sued even if Sabre was negligent)
    3. the gun industry is immune from any lawsuit even if it willfully breaks the law WRT product distribution.
    4. the gun industry is largely protected from oversight by the ATF.


    Changing the subject, I see, Jadegold. Good idea--you weren't doing too well on the original subject--but I don't see you faring much better here.

    The change in subject to which I refer, of course, is from a discussion that was clearly about criminal law, to this new one you're now talking about--civil liability. That's not apples to apples--it's not even apples to oranges. More like apples to pork chops.

    Even if we had been talking about civil liability, the reason the PLCAA was passed was the flood of predatory, opportunistic lawsuits filed by every city with an anti-gun mayor who thought they had a chance of both helping out the city budget and bankrupt the industry they loathe.

    They lost, humiliatingly. Time for them, and you, to get over it.

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  19. Hmmm, racism too huh democommie? What exactly do you have against Dr. King?

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  20. JadeGold: "the gun industry is exempt from product safety regulation"

    While JadeGold omits that gunmakers can be and are sued for safety defects, it is true that there are regulation exemptions for guns. Why? From VPC Director Josh Sugarmann:

    "any rational regulator with that authority would ban handguns"

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  21. A couple of points here. First, if there were people involved in criminal activity, I think all gun owners would support their conviction and punishment. Unless it was done with the express permission of the company, I don't know how you can blame them. They were robbed by their employees. If they were involved, Sabre should lose their license, etc.

    2nd point. Why do you assume that Sabre "turned out to be the source of gun flow into the criminal world"? The article doesn't say who the guns were sold to. Illegal sales. Yep. Going to be used for illegal activity? You have no way of knowing. You just automatically assumed.

    3rd. @Anonymous - Why should any gun manufacturer be held accountable for someone using a weapon illegally? Should Ford be fined or shut down because you drank and drove tonight? Killed someone with your car? Robbed a bank and used a very nice Ford Mustang to drive away? If that is the law you are speaking of, this gun loon would hate to see them not be as exempt as EVERY OTHER COMPANY OUT THERE. Nothing loony about that.

    No name calling. Mike. You going to let this one in?

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  22. faitmaker, To your first point I say you're wrong. Very often lawful gun owners cover up for illegal activity in others for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it's just easier to turn a blind eye, sometimes there's money in it, sometimes it's to avoid giving gun owners in general a bad name. So I disagree with you on that one.

    Your point 2, is simple. To me when guns are stolen out the back of a gun shop, they cannot, literally cannot be going to legit owners. Wouldn't anyone who buys such guns be committing a crime? So, I didn't "automatically" assume anything. I used common sense. Probably they went to out and out criminals, but in the off chance that they went to, let's say, some gun lovers at a bargain price, they'd be criminals anyway.

    I don't know what you mean by, "No name calling. Mike. You going to let this one in?" Only the most persistent name-callers get their comments deleted around here.

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