Live data from Hacker News

Remington Arms Declares Bankruptcy

wsj.com

91–100 of 346 posts

Re: Remington Arms Declares Bankruptcy

#91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly no. If anything the gun industry holds a substantial bit of political power considering the average American doesn't even own a gun. Edit:. Touchy subject but it's a fact the average American doesn't own a gun. The political influence is substantial on the other hand. I'm not anti gun because it should be an inconsequential topic. It's like vegans had the big seat at the table.

30% of American adults own a gun and 43% live in a gun household [1] and only about 40% of Americans bother to vote in presidential elections. Gun owners are more political than non-owners [2] so it's not unlikely that half of all voters or more are gun owners or live in gun households. That's a significant political force. Vegans, in contrast, make up around 0.4-3% of Americans depending on the poll [3]. [1] https:/…

I was being absurd in my comparison to veganism But 70 percent of Americans do not own a gun. Am I being obtuse to say a minority of Americans own a gun?

Living in a household is completely irrelevant.

Re: Remington Arms Declares Bankruptcy

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

30% of American adults own a gun and 43% live in a gun household [1] and only about 40% of Americans bother to vote in presidential elections. Gun owners are more political than non-owners [2] so it's not unlikely that half of all voters or more are gun owners or live in gun households. That's a significant political force. Vegans, in contrast, make up around 0.4-3% of Americans depending on the poll [3]. [1] https:/…

I was being absurd in my comparison to veganism But 70 percent of Americans do not own a gun. Am I being obtuse to say a minority of Americans own a gun? Living in a household is completely irrelevant.

70% of Americans are white but we still care about the minority vote. (Living in a gun-owning household is not irrelevant. For the reasons people buy guns—hunting, self-defense, etc., you don’t need everyone to have a gun in their own name.)

Re: Remington Arms Declares Bankruptcy

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely touchy, but I think even in abstract it's a bit misleading to say in isolation that the average American doesn't own a gun. There are areas of the country where guns are rare, but there are also many areas where they're very normalized and most households have one.

There’s a town in Georgia where owning a gun is mandatory.

It's "mandstory"

The same way in some town in Maryland you can't feed ducks on Sunday. Its a law that is left on the book, completely ignored and largely forgotten about

Re: Remington Arms Declares Bankruptcy

#94
post #38
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds eerily similar to the Harley situation. I had the displeasure of renting a Harley something - street 500 or something along those lines - just to see what all the fuss was about. Seems much ado about nothing, why would I drop 8,000$ on a slab of iron, not even made in the USA anymore, when I could get twice the bike at half the weight for the same price from Suzuki?

But does Suzuki make noise as if a muffler fell off?

I know you were joking, but having ridden a Fat Boy and currently owning a 1l V-Strom I can say that the ridiculously noisy cans on my Suki are nicer to listen to at anything over 1,200 RPM. The Harley burbling away is really cool, but not when you're draging it up to cruising speed.

Re: Remington Arms Declares Bankruptcy

#95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's definitely touchy, but I think even in abstract it's a bit misleading to say in isolation that the average American doesn't own a gun. There are areas of the country where guns are rare, but there are also many areas where they're very normalized and most households have one.

There’s a town in Georgia where owning a gun is mandatory.

What happens if you are a foreigner and you choose to live there?

Re: Remington Arms Declares Bankruptcy

#96
post #41
post #3

Never owned a Remington myself, but they've not been held in high regard for a while. Some say it was linked to it's acquisition by Cerberus Capital. Ultimately, though, it seem alike the company was asking customers to pay premium prices for average guns. What justifies spending 800 - 1200 dollars on a Remington 700 as compared to $500 on a Ruger American?

Remington levered up and took on a ton of debt at the wrong time. The owners gambled and lost. It's a shame that people will lose their jobs over this.

It was actually strategic by the private equity that bought them. They leveraged Remington to the hilt, extracted all of the value and then bankrupted the shell. Not that I am an advocate of what they do but it was actually brilliant. Gun companies on average don't go bankrupt, so they where able to significantly leverage Remington while hollowing it out and moving the assets to other companies. Leaving the shell for the debtors.

Re: Remington Arms Declares Bankruptcy

#97
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was being absurd in my comparison to veganism But 70 percent of Americans do not own a gun. Am I being obtuse to say a minority of Americans own a gun? Living in a household is completely irrelevant.

70% of Americans are white but we still care about the minority vote. (Living in a gun-owning household is not irrelevant. For the reasons people buy guns—hunting, self-defense, etc., you don’t need everyone to have a gun in their own name.)

So was I incorrect in my statementt that a minority of Americans own a gun.

And yes it is irrelevant. I do not control, perhaps do not even know what a roommate owns and vice versa. And that only pushed the needle up a but, to still being in the minority. You mention minorities? Gun owners are a minority

Re: Remington Arms Declares Bankruptcy

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just financial engineering from a private equity company. They are simply bleeding out the brand reputation for as long as they can. Same playbook as every other one. Buy a brand. Cut costs and ship all work to the cheapest labor market. Count on brand loyalty and reputation to carry sales as the quality goes down. Eventually the brand will no longer be worth much due to the lower quality product, but by then…

Which owner of Remington are you referring to? I’m not sure I follow the theory that they experienced irrecoverable quality decline at the hands of one owner, unless you mean DuPont, and that’s hard to measure given the major changes in the retail rifle and pistol market during that time that were not favorable to Remington.

Cerberus Capital / Freedom Group are well-known in the gun community to have turned Remington into "Rustington".

Re: Remington Arms Declares Bankruptcy

#99
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

70% of Americans are white but we still care about the minority vote. (Living in a gun-owning household is not irrelevant. For the reasons people buy guns—hunting, self-defense, etc., you don’t need everyone to have a gun in their own name.)

So was I incorrect in my statementt that a minority of Americans own a gun. And yes it is irrelevant. I do not control, perhaps do not even know what a roommate owns and vice versa. And that only pushed the needle up a but, to still being in the minority. You mention minorities? Gun owners are a minority

You were not incorrect to say they are a minority. Nobody factually disputed you on this detail. However, other folks added relevant details to show the prevalence of fun ownership and to give context to the political influence of gun owners.

Re: Remington Arms Declares Bankruptcy

#100
post #3

Never owned a Remington myself, but they've not been held in high regard for a while. Some say it was linked to it's acquisition by Cerberus Capital. Ultimately, though, it seem alike the company was asking customers to pay premium prices for average guns. What justifies spending 800 - 1200 dollars on a Remington 700 as compared to $500 on a Ruger American?

>> Some say it was linked to it's acquisition by Cerberus Capital. History repeats itself. As if these companies care about the brand reputation over decades, they just want to milk it and then sell it to idiots (public) that recognize the name. People are buying more guns than ever, so it was probably a planned bankruptcy

As if these companies care about the brand reputation over decades, they just want to milk it and then sell it to idiots (public) that recognize the name.

To be fair it's not just corporate raiders who do this to companies. IBM and HP quite happily did it to themselves.

Post reply on HN