If you’ve somehow missed it, Sean is doing great work with his NY Boycott List.
It’s great to see that there are over 70 companies on the list with more being added all the time. I’d like to see it grow well over 100. It’s cool to see some big (and quality) names on there. I’m also proud to see that one of my local dealers is on the list. Good for them! Who’s next, Brownells? I highly doubt we’ll be seeing Glock, S&W, Springfield, or any of the other huge names on the list. I do; however, think that if one of them throws in, the rest will as well. No one wants to look like the company that’s not standing up for our rights.
Well, no one except for those tools at Armalite and GT Distributors. Because evidently we suck, and they hate us.
Thanks for the link.
GT Dist was supposed to “do the right thing” today, but I haven’t seen it yet. Keep your fingers crossed.
http://www.facebook.com/sean.sorrentino?ref=name#!/gtdistributors/posts/10151255654406780
I’ll accept “We limit to LEOs, but we won’t sell anything to LEOs that can’t be sold to citizens in that state/locality.”
NP, hope they come around. Didn’t look like there’d been any progress when I skimmed through a few minutes ago.
Even if Glock, Sig Sauer and S&W all agree to boycott NY there’s one company that I guarantee will not join the boycott, and that’s HK.
Even if they’re a little more expansive, it’s not like they aren’t going to hesitate making it rain with Other People’s Money.
That said, I hope they sign on. CZ and Ruger too.
*expensive
Other than Sean’s sayso (more on that below), you got any basis for slandering the good folks at GT? Ever shopped there? Ever talked to anyone who has?
Those of us who actually HAVE will tell you that Sean’s description of them is inaccurate and just plain wrong. GT is a great friend to individual gun owners, period. Yes, it’s a “cop shop” that primarily provides things like uniforms, duty gear, etc, to LE and first responders, but they are very helpful and accommodating to non-LE customers like me. All that they have done, after getting slammed with a huge back order situation on mags and AR weapons, was to announce that they would TEMPORARILY be accepting new orders for this stuff only from their LE customers — most of which are in Texas, BTW. Does that mean that they have stopped selling to non-LE customers? No — i happened to be in there last month buying ammo when they happened to get a shipment of complete AR lowers (which they sold on a “one-to-a-customer, first-come” basis), and I bought one. Price was the same as before the panic buying ($299 for a High Standard complete lower). Doesn’t sound like a “tool” like Armalite to me.
Please READ GT’s statement yourself. Nothing in there GT’s even remotely suggests that GT says or believes that they exist “only” to serve the LE community. It’s simply not true.
Has GT joined the boycott? Apparently not yet (though I wish they would). But then again, neither has Glock, Sig Sauer, S&W, etc., and I don’t see Sean putting them on his list (nor should he if we want to try and persuade them). Parroting GT as “naughty” simply because Sean didn’t do his homework on them (and after being advised of the actual facts, apparently isn’t man enough to admit he was wrong) is the kind of tactic the gun grabbers utilize — and at least down here in Texas, we try to be better than that.
LKB
Austin, Texas
@ LKB:
How about the fact that they are still making an artificial distinction between LEO’s and “civilians”, and putting the LEO’s first? From their own statement on the Facebook page that Sean linked:
(Emphasis mine.)
It seems to me that they are expressing the exact attitude that’s at the heart of the boycott – treating LEO’s like they’re special, or more important, than non-LEO’s.
New comment because I forgot to subscribe. Ignore this.
Jake:
Have you ever actually dealt with GT? Try shopping there and THEN tell me whether or not they have the attitude you attribute to them. They don’t, and they have most definitely not stopped selling to non-LEO customers. Having been in there quite a bit since the craziness started, I can tell you that they are working their buns off for all their customers, LE and non-LE.
All they have done is to deal with the shortage of certain items (mags and AK- or AR-platform weapons) by temporarily not allowing backorders of those items. As I understand it, because GT didn’t jack up their prices like CTD and others, they got swamped by a huge wave of people trying to order PMAGs and AR’s at their usual prices. Rather than raise prices, they dealt with the shortage by temporarily limiting additional back orders of certain items to their core customer base (and even then, they are saying that they may not be able to fill those orders for many months).
Does that mean that, as Sean has slanderously asserted, that they will only sell mags to LE? No, it does not — if you’re in the store and they happen to have them in stock that day, you can buy them (and I have).
More importantly, NOTHING in GT’s statement (which was issued many weeks ago) indicates that they have taken a position on the boycott (cf. Armalite, which HAS taken a position), and so it is simply unfair to claim that they are opposing it. (If you are going to put them on the “naughty” list for not yet taking a position, then why aren’t Glock, S&W, Colt, Sig Sauer, Rock River, Kimber, Ruger, etc. on the list?)
Bottom line: People who have actually dealt with them will tell you that GT is a class operation and a good friend to individual gun owners. And it is a shame that people who have never dealt with them have chosen to smear them in this fashion.
LKB
Austin, Texas
Fixed that for you.
By their own statement, they are only allowing LEO’s to order AR/AK’s, >10 round mags, and .223/5.56 ammunition. “Civilians” only get the opportunity to buy any of those if there are some not already spoken for after the LEO’s have had a chance to place their orders. LEO’s can place new orders, but “civilians” cannot, thus giving LEO’s first crack at purchasing and leaving “civilians” to pick through the LEO leftovers. So I stand behind my previous statement: They are still making an artificial distinction between LEO’s and “civilians”, and putting the LEO’s first. They may not have clearly stated a position on the boycott, but they have clearly taken one.
Accusing Sean of slander is at a minimum an overstatement that ignores any question of intent (it’s also wrong: if your accusation were true, it would be libel, not slander) regarding what was at most a misstatement. True, GT will sell the aforementioned items to non-LEO’s – but only if there are any left over after the LEO’s have gotten the ones they were allowed to order that non-LEO’s weren’t.
Again, they’re putting LEO’s above “civilians” – exact attitude that’s at the heart of this boycott. They have demonstrated through their actions that they belong on the “naughty” list.
@ LKB: I firmly believe my guest authors should fight their own battles, but inanity like this is hard not to comment on. This really is quite simple; per GT Distributors’ Facebook post on 07JAN13, they have made it quite clear that they will only continue accepting and honoring orders for “high-capacity magazines” (of all makes, not just police-standard ones), AR / AK / M1A / Mini-14 (what was the last police department you heard of that actually used AKs?) firearms, and .223/5.56 FMJ ammunition if and only if those orders come with a law enforcement ID or agency letterhead.
Us little people are screwed.
Now, sure, they can rationalize it all they like by saying that the current crunch of supplies means they need to service their police customers first, but by so doing, they are openly admitting to establishing and maintaining a two-tier system of customers, with the cops on top, and everyone else out in the cold… much like Armalite, but GT Distributors is applying it nationwide. It is a shame that GT Distributors have decided that cops are more equal than everyone else.
Unfortunately for you, Glock, Sig Sauer, S&W, etc. have released no such statement, so your attempting to conflate GT Distributors with those companies is… well, stupid, and indicative of remarkably poor logic – another tactic the “gun grabbers utilize”, by the by.
Those are the facts; I cannot help that you do not like them.
Now, if GT Distributors wants to come out and say that they will be accepting no further orders, of any type, police or non-police, from NY, CA, etc., then that would be abiding by the desires of the NY Boycott, and that would probably remove them from the Naughty List (at least in my eyes). Conveniently, though, that “clarification” they were supposed to post yesterday… is nowhere to be seen. That kind of puts a strain on my faith that they are men of their words.
Their belief that LEO customers should still come first everywhere else is still idiotic and misguided, and it would certainly be enough of a reason for me to shop elsewhere… if I ever shopped at GT Distributors before. But, hey, if you like a store that treats you like a second-class citizen, knock yourself the frak out.
And speaking of knocking yourself out, I think it is safe to say that we all comprehend that you have a vendetta against Sean for his not responding, to your satisfaction, to your trolling on his site and now here. Get over it, go buy your own web space you can pollute with your rantings, or grow a pair and email Sean directly rather than pissing and moaning all over cyberspace. Those are your only three options when it comes to this site.
(Oh, and this whole, “Have you ever shopped there?” schtick was old before you even started it. That detail is immaterial – not only does GT Distributors maintain an online store front, they maintain an online web presence through that store front, Twitter, and Facebook. Oddly enough, it is entirely possible to build an opinion of a company through their online presence – considering they have spent time carefully crafting that presence – especially considering that their “police are better than you” letter came out online.)
Sorry, but my actual experience with GT forces me to disagree.
If your assessment was correct, this non-LE customer would not have been able to purchase 30 round AR mags this afternoon from GT for $19 each (which I did).
If your assessment was correct, GT would not have had .223 FMJ available today for both LE and non-LE walk in customers (200 round limit).
As far as the legal elements of slander vs. libel, I’ll concede that online defamation fits better into the common law box of libel, albeit the more instantaneous nature of blogging makes it, in my mind, analytically closer to traditional slander. (I’ve been practicing law for over 25 years, BTW.) Regarding requisite intent, hasn’t Sean republished, continued, and ratified his “misstatements” after they were pointed out to him? Under the laws of most states, I think that would certainly constitute clear evidence of intent for purposes of a libel or slander claim.
Legal niceties aside, for whatever reason he’s made a declarative statement about GT’s practices (GT not selling to non-LE customers) that simply isn’t true. One would hope that he’d acknowledge the mistake and apologize, instead of perpetuating the smear.
We’re going to need all the friends and allies we can get in this fight. It does us little good to falsely accuse a company that has been a good friend to individual gun owners.
LKB
Austin, Texas
@ LKB:
You know, if you up one tenth the effort you put into bugging me and my friends about this into convincing GT to clarify their statements, this would be over already.
Do you know what the Streisand Effect is? Google it.
… Aaaand that was it. Any further comments from LKB on this topic will be summarily disemvoweled.
That will probably only last one comment or so, because it takes way too much effort, and then I am just going to start nuking them.
Is that clear enough for you, LKB?
@ Sean D Sorrentino:
Sn: hw d y knw hvn’t bn wrkng n GT n ths rgrd? (BTW, lbbd lcl mm mfgr. tdy t jn th byctt. ‘m n bsnss tlks wth thm, nd thy hdn’t hrd f th byctt. Fngrs crssd tht thy’ll jn.)
‘ll dd tht t’s lt hrdr t mk lls f ppl ftr thy’v bn flsly ccsd.
LKB
stn, Txs
@ Linoge:
Yr hs, yr rls. &
@ LKB:
Awww, they let you have the LEO’s leftovers! Wasn’t that ever so nice of them!
Bottom line: Cops get to place orders so they’ll have guaranteed delivery, even if the timeframe is questionable because merchandise is backordered. Everybody else (including LEO’s who didn’t order) can buy from whatever is left over after the cops’ orders are filled – when there is anything left over.
@ LKB: And, unlike GT Distributors, I am a man of my word. I did warn you. Over an hour ago, in fact.
@ Jake: And not only is he so very thankful that he got the scraps left behind by the police departments and governmental agencies, he thinks everyone else should be too!
Frankly, piss on that.
And just because I know my motivations/actions will be (probably intentionally) misunderstood and misrepresented, allow me to make myself perfectly clear.
I did not disemvowel LKB’s comments because he disagreed with Skas, Sean, myself, or anyone else. I disemvoweled them because he chose to bring his personal grudge against Sean from Sean’s webpage – where the comments there appear to have automatically closed, like the comments here are scheduled to do – to this one.
This site is my soapbox, and the soapbox of those I choose to invite. I do not look up on it being hijacked for other people’s vendettas kindly.
If LKB has a problem with Sean – and he obviously does – the former can email the latter; he does publish his email address for the world to see. The fact that he chose to air those grievances instead of settling them person-to-person rather says something, I think.
First, sorry to all for my delayed response. My daughter was born yesterday and I’ve spent a bit of time AFK.
@Derek – maybe, their comments during the RECOIL fiasco indicate they might be slowly coming around.
@LKB – I am glad you have had better luck with GT than their comments on FB would indicate a “civilian”should expect. They could easily resolve the situation by clarifying their position and giving up on a verbal policy of some animals being more equal than others. Probably not as bad as Armalite’s policy, but GT certainly hasn’t publicly indicated they’re with us via text. Again, the only written policy I’ve seen indicates they are not.
They could have just followed the old advice, “better be silent and thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt”.
@Jake, Sean, and Linoge – you guys pretty much covered all the bases, thanks.
My last thought would be that if you make public statements, particularly via social media, be prepared to clarify and be questioned.
@ Skas:
CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!
Hope her and momma are healthy and happy.
Hopefully HK will come around in time. Mostly academic for this po cracker, I’m afraid.