Sunday, May 5, 2013

But It's Pink


Here's the big story of the morning:

http://www.ibtimes.com/my-first-rifle-maker-crickett-rifles-deletes-website-after-accidental-death-2-year-old-caroline#

Here's the lede: Crickett Firearms, the brand that produces the “My First Rifle” line of guns designed for youth shooters, has pulled all its websites offline in the aftermath of a shooting last week in which a 5-year-old Kentuckian, who had been given a Crickett rifle as a gift, fatally shot his 2-year-old sister.

Mother Jones covered the event a couple of days ago: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/05/crickett-rifle-marketing-kids

Here's a pic captured from that MoJo story, which was from the now deleted website of Keystone Sporting Arms:



In the Washington Post story on the shooting, Keystone Sporting Arms, which makes these weapons for children, was reported as starting out as a company of 4 employees, and as succeeding in its niche market to the point that it now employs some 70 persons.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/authorities-2-year-old-kentucky-girl-accidentally-shot-killed-by-5-year-old-brother/2013/04/30/c1832fee-b206-11e2-9fb1-62de9581c946_story.html?tid=pm_pop

Here's where the tragedy happened (from the Post story):



This week some jackass from National Review argued that gun legislation was not fair, because it was imposing "Chicago's problems" on the innocent people of Indiana. Why should all these freedom-loving, hard-working, gun-owning citizens in "rural American" have their life-styles affected by the sordid doings of mostly "different" people who live for whatever crazy perverted reason in our big cities. The Kentucky newspaper who covered the shooting quoted a local DA who more or less said the same thing when he noted that "these things hardly ever happen down here." Doghouse Riley, in his astute analysis of the story, did the math: Let's holster the self-congratulations, Your Honor. The population of Cumberland county in 2011 was 6,832. That gives a death by gun rate of 0.0037%. In 2011 New York City's was 0.0072%.

Here's Riley's piece: http://doghouseriley.blogspot.com/2013/05/lahrs.html

The lawyer for the people who make and market the guns said this wasn't the time to get into a discussion of gun laws--that would just be exploiting the grief of the family. Charges might or might not be filed. In Riley's comments, someone suggested that the 2-year-old should, obviously, have had a weapon to protect herself.

If you look at the success story of Keystone Arms through the rose-colored glasses Mr. Romney offered all of us back last November, what you see is nothing less than the glory of Capitalism at work. A near majority of our U.S. Senators told us during and after the vote on the pitiful little background check legislation that was quashed that even that bit of effort towards sanity was enough to endanger our Second Amendment Freedom. Obviously, or at least most likely, the background check law would not have stopped the Crickett from being introduced into that household in Kentucky. I'd guess Fox News will shortly be on the case, defending Keystone Fire Arms, Inc.

Here's my long-range question though. If we're going to run our business like this, why in the world should we have an arsenal of nuclear weapons. Would you trust "these people" with your life? They can't even look out for their own children.

Hey, wait a minute, Pilgrim. "These People?" That's us! Yep. And while we try to look sanely at but one small moment of life and death, here in NC our legislative Republican leaders have removed to the ALEC convention (at their own expense they report, nothing to see here). There they will learn what new legislation to craft, in order to further disarm any remaining abilities to resist their coming Kochian Order. They're of course fine with the "Second Amendment Solution." But good luck with that pink popgun if a serious issue with authority happens to come up.

As I've said here before, consider the film "Harlan County, USA." That brave mother with the .38 Special in her bra does not win the day. The day is won by lawyers in New York, far far away from rural America. Keystone Arms will be back in business, because America's Business is Business.

Maybe the truth is, we're all laboring under the false illusion that "progress" is actually possible. Via Kim Morgan's Gunshots Tumblr pages:



This was back in the '50s, when the "true" Americans were entirely in charge, and now and again lynched people who crossed the line. At least mom's not drunk, like William Burroughs.

Monday Update.

You'd think this Keystone Arms Company would be a little concerned, in some way or another, by the terrible tragedy to which their cute little "kid's rifle" contributed. I guess you'd be wrong. Here's what the header at the top of their website says at the moment:

DUE TO THE RECENT EVENTS IN CONNETICUT WE ARE BACK LOGGED ON OUR ORDERS, PLEASE BEAR WITH US DURING THIS TIME, IT WILL TAKE US TIME TO PROCESS ORDERS. WE ARE CURRENTLY OUT OF ALL OUR AR15 PARTS. WE ARE SORRY FOR ANY INCONVIENENCE THIS CAUSES PEOPLE BUT THIS IS OUT OF OUR CONTROL. (www.keystonearms.com) [sic]

I clicked around on their site for a bit. Here's a pretty neat bit of info, found under the category "Machine Gun Parts."
In fact, this is the whole "Machine Gun Parts" page, at the moment:

Machine Gun Parts
ALL NFA RULES APPLY

Under NO circumstances will any Machine Gun Parts be sent to the state of Washington
1917-A1/1919-A4/A6

BAR 1918

Bren .303 Cal
Galil

Lewis Gun

M-2 Browning .50 Cal
M-60

MG-34

MG-42


The NRA logo is displayed proudly on the home page, from whence I captured it:



I would presume that this implies that the NRA is behind Keystone Firearms Company. I display the logo here only to prove that it was present on the Keystone site on Monday, 5/6/13.

Earlier in the day I checked our local news website (WRAL.com) for further news concerning the Kentucky tragedy and or the Keystone Firearms Company. WRAL reported nothing new. It's old hat to the media already. That's why Keystone is back in bidness. For them, "events in Connecticut" are just a nuisance, and events in Kentucky are entirely below the event horizon. Mitt Romney would no doubt be durn proud.

And the town where the events occurred apparently stands four-square behind Keystone Arms:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/06/us/kentucky-town-rejects-girls-gun-death-as-a-symbol.html?hp&_r=4&

Or at least two fascists who live there do, since their response to media coverage was to slug the cameraman and threaten the writer. Joe Hill, meet Mussolini, as alive as you and me, alive as you and me.

_______________________________

CORRECTION! As Mr. Yothers pointed out to me in a comment, I have confused two different Pennsylvania Arms companies in this post. There is a Keystone Sporting Arms company, of Milton, PA, which markets the children's rifles, one of which was the weapon in the tragedy in Kentucky, and there is also a Keystone Arms Company, of Matamoros, PA, which sells various kinds of firearms and parts thereof, including parts for "antique" machine guns which they name on their machine gun parts page, which I copied above. Whatever you might think about selling machine gun parts, it's not identical to selling pink kid-sized rifles that look like toys. I appreciate Mr. Yothers' interest in factuality and his comment.






2 comments:

  1. Keystone Arms and Keystone Sporting Arms are two different companies and sell completely different kinds of firearms.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I stand corrected. My apologies to somebody? My page capture was from Keystone Arms, Matamoros, PA, which does ship machine gun pieces to all of the states of America except Washington State. Keystone Sporting Arms, of Sodom Rd., Milton, PA, sells the "Chipmunk" and Crickett" rifles. Obviously both companies residing in PA, they both choose to use the PA "nickname," the Keystone State. I'll go fix the text of the post to reflect this. Thanks for the heads up, Mr. Yothers.

    ReplyDelete