Many Gun Owners emailed you with a serious concern. You responded in a flippant and asinine manner that shows clear disdain for your main customer, the American Gun Owner.
Dear concerned gun owner,
First of all I would like to say thank you for filling my email with all this spam email.
Second, I am not sure where you got this blanket email from to send out as spam, but please stop it.
Third, The manufacturer is not the one you need to convince.
You need to convince the law enforcement agencies and the common people about their mistake in electing these officials and have them removed. Again NOT the manufacture.
AR Stands for ArmaLite…
Respectfully,
Pat Raley
Respectfully, Pat? Really? Well then… Allow me to retort. With all the other AR Manufacturers out there, the American Gun Owner can fully and comfortably get by without giving you any business. I’m sure New York will reward your loyalty by ordering enough Armalites to keep you in business, because the rest of us want nothing to do with you if you don’t sort this out pronto. With all due respect…
Some time after this email went out, the President of Armalite responded on Arfcom:
Thanks for posting this email. I just received a concerned telephone call about it, an email from the staffer who stimulated the mail.
I think a bit of clarification is in order.
The root of the matter is a HUGE series of inquiries by both email and telephone asking ArmaLite to cut off sales to New York and other states which deny its citizens the right to own our rifles, as several other firms have done. Some of the contacts have been duplicates of others and some were so redundant that they appeared to be spam. Many of them have been rude and I’m afraid one of my staffers thought that he was responding to a spammer and was more terse than he should have been. Once he realized what happened he came to me and apologized.
My purpose here is to pass on his apology from the corporate level and to answer the initial question: What is ArmaLite going to do?
ArmaLite is continuing a policy put into place when California first banned our rifles. That policy remains:
1. We will not sell to those states which deny it’s honorable citizens the right to own ArmaLite’s.
2. We do not halt sales to individual officers even in problematic states. I am a former Police Officer myself, and the staffer who stimulated the recent anger is a currently serving one. We are well familiar with the fact that most rifles serving Police Officers are purchased by the officers themselves, and that they shouldn’t be punished for the actions of their political elite.
We consider sales to those sate subdivisions which are not engaged or potentially engaged with disarming its citizens. DNR and Forestry Departments, for instance, sometimes serve in remote areas that conceal drug farms and their officers deserve good hardware.
3. We will not sell to those lower political subdivisions that deny their honorable citizens the right to own ArmaLite’s. Chicago, for instance, prohibits its citizens from owning ArmaLite’s within the city limits so we make no effort to sell into that city. We have many friends on the Chicago Police Department and have continued to sell to them individually.
Our observation is that most County Sheriffs disagree with banning sales of our rifles and many publicly refuse to enforce such laws. We sell to those departments and to their Deputies, but will not sell to those County departments headed by Sheriffs who would deny their citizens the same rights.
In short, Americans need not worry that ArmaLite is selling to those who betray them.
As you can see by reading posts on the topic, some readers have been harsh with their criticism of ArmaLite. It was in response to this atmosphere that my staffer reacted harshly. He’s come to me and apologized and I personally am passing my own apology along with his.
But don’t be mistaken, ArmaLite is strongly involved with both personal, corporate, and political efforts at the State, National, and International level to protect our civil rights. And we’ll continue to support your shooting needs as the situation moves forward.
Respectfully,
Mark Westrom
President,
ArmaLite Inc.
Okay, after reading Mark’s response a couple times, I’m glad that they didn’t “Recoil” the situation. I’ll take his explanation at face value.
George, this works a little better if you link to the letter you sent them.
Thanks for posting this. People seem really quick to demand a boycott and I tend to want to give the company a chance to respond or make it right.
I seen this go down on ar15.com and it didn’t go over as ArmaLite expected and it appears that their little advertisement button was taken down shortly after the president’s reply. Poor choice…just because we are civilians doesn’t mean we face different threats than the police, because we face the exact same threats and require the same protection afforded to the police.
Suggest a slight rewording: “…just because we aren’t cops doesn’t mean…”
To borrow from Commander Vimes,
It always embarrassed Samuel Vimes when civilians tried to speak to him in what they thought was “policeman.” If it came to that, he hated thinking of them as civilians. What was a policeman, if not a civilian with a uniform and a badge? But they tended to use the term these days as a way of describing people who were not policemen. It was a dangerous habit: once policemen stopped being civilians the only other thing they could be was soldiers.
A perfect description of the problem with many law enforcement types. Remember when you saw the officer traveling 75 in a 55 zone because He Could……..
Oh please- what a waffler- he should be working at an Ihop.
The way I read it is they won’t sell an Armalite rifle to me but they will sell it to a cop here in California.
That’s exactly the reading I take from it and why arfcom was full of angry complaints.
In fact, he goes on to justify it by stating, “we are well familiar with the fact that most rifles serving Police Officers are purchased by the officers themselves…”
Clearly, Armalite has no problem arming police in states where the population’s right to own those same arms is roundly violated. I don’t see why the distinction of who purchases the rifle matters. Whether selling to officers directly or through their department, LEOs have freedoms that ordinary citizens do not and Armalite is supporting that.
Oh good, Carmolite still sells to those in uniform. You know, because they are fighting the good fight. I can see why civilians would not need them. I mean, they only really have them So they can post pictures on the Internet and shoot varmints with them. I think this is a totally lame explanation. So the staffer thought he was replying to spam? This is why he addressed the email as “concerned gun owner”?
Sorry meant to say Armalite. I have no idea what Carmolite is.
The problem with the United Soviet Socialist Republic of NY (I live in upstate) is that the governor as well as the state legislature is bought and paid for by NYC. (I know, I should move, but the job is key right now). We should try to convince them to stop abridging our rights, but they literally have a larger majority of people that want the government to abridge our rights. (I know, I need to move).
I am currently enjoying my 17 oz. soda. while smoking indoors with a 10 round magazine (with only 7 rounds in it). They want a nanny state here.
I was looking for an AR10. I’m glad that Mark @ Armalite has convinced me to get a Larue PredatAR instead. Larue stands with their customers.
So does Crusader, and Crusader will build you a better gun.
Let me get this straight at face value. Armalite won’t sell to those nasty entities that infringe on the 2nd amendment, but if any individual in said entity wants an Armalite, they have no problem selling them one. So, the death of a thousand cuts is OK, just no guillotine. If I understand this correctly, it is what I usually refer to as TFBS. Note to Mr. Westrom – you won’t be “supporting” any of my shooting needs.
And fer cryin’ out loud, learn to use the apostrophe correctly. The CEO of a company should know how to use puncuation and/or spell check. Jeez.
Well I’m glad he didn’t double down on the stupid like recoil. If that staffer had half a brain when they see spam mail like that comming in and have to reply to it anyway they can always make a word doc and copy/paste it.
Stupid staffer does not mean dumb company –
I don’t think that any firearms company forgot what happened to Smith&Wesson and Ruger.