Kudos to GunCo for modeling good corporate citizenship while showing the voters of Colorado who’s boss and an utter indifference to the death and destruction they contribute to. I hope the rest of the Gun Industry (“growing rich on your freedom”) moves to Wyoming.

Company makes good on leaving Colo. over gun laws | ABQJournal Online by Bob Moen / Associated Press

Erie, Colo.-based Magpul Industries Corp. announced Thursday that it was moving its production, distribution and shipping operations to Cheyenne and its headquarters to Texas, making good on a vow it made to leave Colorado during last year’s gun control debate.

“Moving operations to locations that support our culture of individual liberties and personal responsibility is important,” Magpul CEO Richard Fitzpatrick said in a statement. “Moving to a true multi-state operation will also allow Magpul to utilize the strengths of both Texas and Wyoming as we continue to expand.”

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead said in a statement that Wyoming offers Magpul “a firm commitment to uphold the Second Amendment.”

The Democrat-led Colorado Legislature and Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper enacted a new law last year prohibiting the sale of gun magazines that hold more than 15 rounds. It was part of a package of legislation in response to mass shootings at a suburban Denver movie theater and a Connecticut elementary school.

The laws drew praise from gun control activists but sparked furor from gun rights advocates. The laws prompted the successful recall of two Democratic state senators and the resignation of a third.

Randy Bruns, CEO of Cheyenne’s economic development organization, said it is working with Magpul on a financial package that could include up to $13 million in state grants and loans to help the company move to Cheyenne.

Company makes good on leaving Colo. over gun laws | ABQJournal Online

The notion of “corporate culture” is as laughable as “corporate ethics.” They’re in it for the money and nothing else.

E.J. Dionne Jr.: The miracle on guns – The Washington Post

Suddenly, Americans in large numbers (and the media, too) started noticing how extreme, even wacky, the rhetoric of the gun manufacturers’ lobby has become. Its talk about representing the “real America” was exposed as a fraud: “Real” Americans don’t resist pragmatic solutions to the problems of mass violence.

Oh, yes, and it was also finally noticed that a majority of Americans doesn’t own guns, that gun ownership has dropped over time and that this real majority does not want to be forced to live in a world in which everyone is terrorized into buying a weapon.

E.J. Dionne Jr.: The miracle on guns – The Washington Post

WATCH: A Republican Whose Nephew Was Killed In Aurora Explains In 80 Seconds Why We Need Stronger Gun Laws | ThinkProgress

It’s hard to think of a position that’s more mainstream than Hoover’s. Universal background checks are supported by 91 percent of Americans and 92 percent of Republicans. One of the only groups that publicly opposes universal background checks are the NRA’s lobbyists.

If Congress succeeds in passing universal background checks and other commonsense gun laws, it will be because it’s not a polarizing issue, but one that’s nearly universally supported.

Transcript below the fold:

HOOVER: We’ve had so many issues over the years, so many killings, and for us just to say we’re not going to do anything is unacceptable, because we’ve been doing nothing up to this point. We’ve been given the right to own and bear arms, but we also need to show that we are responsible in how we deal with the gun issue. We need a framework to say that we need background checks on every individual that buys a gun. If you are a reasonable and responsible gun owner—as I am, and I’ve grown up hunting, shooting, my daughter, I take her out shooting—she’s been taught that with the right comes responsibility. Nobody wants somebody to purchase a firearm that shouldn’t have a firearm. And that includes sales that happen currently on the Internet, and private sales. It’s just responsible. This is not something about [Republican and Democrat], this is about doing what’s responsible and right for our communities and our country. If anybody can be prevented from getting that phone call that I got at 2:37am from my sister, it’s worth it. You gotta stop this.

WATCH: A Republican Whose Nephew Was Killed In Aurora Explains In 80 Seconds Why We Need Stronger Gun Laws | ThinkProgress

Oh, but we don’t know how many thousands of crimes were stopped by people armed with automatic weapons in just the past two months. And England hasn’t dared invade! peace, mjh

Gun debate should be about facts, not fantasy – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com

This “serious conversation,” remember, got started on December 14, with a massacre in a quiet little New England town. Since that day, the shooting has not stopped, nor even slowed.

In Miami Gardens on Jan. 17, a 15-year-old boy was shot and killed.

In Albuquerque on Jan. 19, a 15-year-old boy allegedly shot his parents and three of his siblings to death.

In Houston on Jan. 22, three people were shot on a community college campus.

In Chicago on Jan. 29, a 15-year-old girl who’d performed at President Obama’s inauguration was shot to death.

And in that same city, six days later, Shirley Chambers buried her last child. Ronnie Chambers, like all three of his siblings before him, was killed by gunfire. How must it feel to have lost all your children to guns? That is not hypothetical. It is one woman’s tragic reality.

Too many deranged or criminal people have access to too much firepower and we are paying the price in carnage and blood. This is the ordinary everyday of American life — and death. That’s what we should be talking about. Not LaPierre’s doomsday scenarios or Trotter’s old movie plots.

They ask us to consider what could happen. Better we consider what does.

Gun debate should be about facts, not fantasy – Leonard Pitts Jr. – MiamiHerald.com

I’ve never watched the Super Bowl. I loathe corporate sports. But, if you like it, I don’t hate you. I don’t hate you for driving a car, but I think Big Oil will destroy the earth for a profit. I don’t hate you for the products you consume and enjoy, but I’m certain the manufacturers would gladly poison you for more money.

I don’t hate responsible gun owners. Several of my friends have guns. I have fired a rifle more than once and wasn’t bad at target shooting, though I much prefer archery or throwing rocks.

I believe corporations exist for one reason above all others: to make a few people rich. They make the top executives rich while screwing labor. They make the board rich, while bribing the watchdogs. Corporations pretend to serve their customers, but they actually serve a few people at the top.

To my mind, the NRA is a corporation. Its board is the Gun Industry, which only profits by selling weapons of destruction — the more, the better. The NRA funnels vast amounts of money into a few hands. In the process, the NRA claims to represent the interests of all of its members, in theory, the interests of every single gun owner. The NRA does NOT represent the interests of reasonable people.

If you own a gun, if you like guns, if you love guns, peace unto you. If you are a member of the NRA, kick some sense into its leadership.

I have a rhetorical style that is less moderate than I am, taken in my entirety. I don’t apologize for my passion, but I do regret that my anger puts some people off. Sometimes, I agree that “if you’re not angry, you’re not paying attention.” People are dying. Other people are growing rich off of that death — why would they try to reduce it or tolerate anyone who did try?