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“The Dakota War of 1862 . . . was an armed conflict between the United States and several bands of Dakota (also known as the eastern ‘Sioux‘),” wikipedia.org reports. “It began on August 17, 1862, along the Minnesota River in southwest Minnesota. It ended with a mass execution of 38 Dakota men on December 26, 1862, in Mankato, Minnesota.” The mass hanging remains the largest official mass execution in U.S. history.

The images above are from American Legacy Firearms‘ Mankato commemorative rifle. The noose on the firearm’s butt stock ignited a firestorm of criticism. twincities.com contacted ALF GM Jean Van Oppen, who hadn’t realized that the noose image would cause such concern.

Yeah, the noose that was put on there, that definitely got some attention. We thought it was very forward of us to do that. We did not mean to hurt anyone’s feelings or to be mean or rub it in or anything like that, it was just the historical aspect . . .

We felt it was a piece of history that should never be forgotten and is one of the most historical events that took place in the area. We do not mean any offense with the image.

Responding to the backlash, the company has withdrawn the Makato commemorative rifle from sale.

“We definitely listened to what everybody had to say,” Van Oppen said. “Hindsight is 20/20. It probably wasn’t the best choice to put on the rifle. … Unfortunately, we did not put our best foot forward there.”

I wouldn’t want a Auschwitz commemorative rifle with a picture of the gas chambers. Then again, freedom of expression. And Christianity’s sacred symbol is a cross. Your thoughts?

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87 COMMENTS

  1. It’s history. Caving to SJWs is plain stupidity. If they don’t like the rifle they can go fuck themselves and not buy the rifle. Five will get you twenty one of those whiners would have bought the gun anyway.

    • Mass execution of natives of the territory that was stolen from them. Now we have a president (a decent of the murderous thieves) that wants to build a wall to keep all of the other non-natives out. Fuck you, you dumb fuck. Go hang yourself with that noose.

      • You misspelled “conquered”. You don’t get to lose wars and bitch about the outcome.

        You will forgive me if I don’t concern myself over some pre-industrial savages too stupid to figure out the wheel or how to domesticate animals.

        • Native Americans…
          Did domesticate animals; dogs, horses (once the white man re-introduced them).
          They were, however, not just pre-industrial, they were stone-age. The only metal working they did was with ductile silver and gold.

      • Touchy touchy. It’s all Trumps fault for wanting immigrants to come here legally. Back to the subject at hand the noose wasn’t the best idea or why they would even make a commemorative rifle for that terrible moment in our history is beyond me.

      • Wrong. It’s called Right of Conquest. It’s not pretty, but it’s the way the world works. The natives had every right to defend themselves from conquest, but they failed. So it now belongs to the US, and will until someone else takes it. If they can. Provided we now have Trump, Mexico’s plan of “reconquista” will fail.

  2. For God sakes, it is history. Quit being pussy’s about what you sell. The darn demos aren’t going to be doing much business with you anyway.

      • Were I Sioux I would likely feel that complaining about the Bureau of Indian Affairs to bring their incompetence to the attention of President Trump might be a better use of my time.

        • Or you could quit complaining and just be thankful for the fact that there IS a bureau of “Indian Affairs” and the fact that you get special treatment under the law not granted to every other citizen of this nation.

        • Special treatment like fishing with nets, avoiding taxes and running casinos pales in comparison to the fact that on many reservations private property isn’t a thing because of the BIA.

        • Yeah… Let me know when the BIA is forcing people to live there… Wait, they’re not? Well then…

        • Actually, in a way they are being forced to live there. Many Indian tribes hold the religious belief that they cannot live for any length of time away from where the bones of their family, in some cases most notably their father, are buried. As I understand it this is often a really short distance in modern terms. Apparently some of the reservations around the country were actually set up based on the location of ancestral burial grounds and the edges of the reservation demarcate how far these people can go before being too far away.

          That may sound strange, it sure as hell does to me, but basically telling someone “violate your religious beliefs or essentially live as an indentured servant to the state” is about as un-American as you can get. Of course not all of them believe in the old religions but for those that do it seems like a pretty obvious 1A issue.

          The Indian’s I’ve read commenting on this out here in the West are not asking for more handouts. They want the BIA dissolved and the various Nations to be free to sink or swim on their own. That sounds dandy to me. Eliminate an agency, liquidate the positions, free up tax money, get rid of this stupid system that’s holding the Indians back and let the Indians make it or break it in the free market as their own little countries that they manage rather than Big Pa Government. They already have their own police forces and I’m sure an agreement on roadways that transit the reservations can be readily had, in fact in most cases I think it already exists.

          If nothing else we save the money that’s currently being used on the Federally Administered Tribal Lands.

        • So you want us to cede sovereign US territory to a bunch of modern savages? No. Not going to happen. We can get rid of BIA, but then they will need to follow the laws of whatever state they are in.

        • Done long ago. The Injun tribes can randomly play “we’re a nation/you can’t tell us what to do” when it suits their objectives, then two days later change direction 180degrees demanding another handout from the evil whiteman.

          The current BS is the anarchist rioting over the Dakota pipeline. Show me the map of your ancient sacred buryin ground etc. As idiotic as Islamic tribalism where ever spot Mooohamud took a squat is some sacred spot (when twisting the nose/shaking down Uncle).

      • If I was a “native” American on the reservation, I’d be collecting my blood wampum from the casino on the res and not working.

        Nice to get 100k a year for doing nothing. It’s buys a lot of fire water. Lol

        • That fact that with all that free shit the natives still haven’t managed to make their society worth two farts in a paper bag tells you everything you need to know about their “vibrant culture”.

        • $100K a year? Have you actually seen a reservation?

          I won’t say no one, because there’s probably someone out there doing it, but very nearly no one is getting $100K a year to sit on their ass and pound firewater. Go poke around a reservation. Those places are, by and large, poor and broke down as fuck.

          If the Indians were getting the fat checks you suggest they’d at least be blowing it on something better, and more obvious, than Busch Light and shitty weed.

        • strych9 – So pretty much same result as dumping trillions of $ into uncivilized tribes elsewhere in the US? Say the Sound side of Chicago and other ethnic shitholes? Mass corruption and graft by the “leaders” and lazy ne’er-do-wells as far as the eye can see demanding a handout.

          There is a reason the WASP rose to the top and why others who assimilated and copied him, did as well.

      • My experience is that it’s mostly white folk complaining about names, or college professors. Every Sioux I’ve ever met called himself Indian. Every Navajo, Ute, and Hopi, too.

  3. Well… the end result of the war was the largest mass execution in U.S. history and it was a public hanging…

    I wouldn’t buy it but I don’t think it’s particularly offensive. Supposedly some of those who were executed had their skin removed and sold as souvenirs… a nice engraving depicting that might have been a bit much.

  4. “Then again, freedom of expression.”

    Freedom of expression has absolutely fuck all to do with any part of this story. No one threatened to sue or imprison anyone over this rifle. They made a voluntary decision to withdraw it from the market after people voluntarily told them to eat shit and die. They could have continued to sell it with absolutely zero legal consequences. Please do not fall into the trap of ‘1st amendment = I can say whatever I want whenever I want and no one can disagree’.

      • You’re suggesting… and I want to make sure I’m 100% clear on this, that a company that makes GUNS was bullied or threatened into an otherwise unwanted decision? A company that probably has enough firearms to arms every single one of it’s employees and their families?

        • Yeah… Because clearly they would respond with violence to harassment rather than take the easy way out… You might want to take a look at what caused Smith and Wesson to go bankrupt.

      • The 1st Amendment doesn’t have anything to do with bullying or harassment either, UNLESS it is harassment from the government. That’s it.

        • Freedom of expression doesn’t just apply to the government. Like I said. Don’t like the gun? Quit being a whiny bitch and don’t buy it.

        • Get a fricking clue. The 1st Amendment was written to protect POLITICAL SPEAK. Perhaps you’ve heard of old king George and his various acts of the 18th Century???

          The massive and ludicrous extensions of the 1st were invented by the Marxist progtards.

  5. Well, I can see why this would piss off the Souix… But around the US, the Left celebrates anti American behavior that’s downright disrespectful to our history, heritage, and our veterans, everyday. These outburst and displays of ignorance are embraced and bragged about by the Left, it’s absolutely discusting. People whiping their asses with the flag, and worse. So… To all the SJW I say deal with it because your childish behavior far eclipses this.

    • I don’t know if it’s a simple we won they lost. Europeans came to their land then instituted a policy of genocide. With that none of the perpetrators are still alive today to apologize or face their own execution. If they were they would face war crimes killing women and children. They didn’t conquer and absorb the population like Rome. Old Hickory is a war criminal.

      • There was no “policy of genocide”. Cultures clash. It has happened thousands of times over the millennia. When that happens, generally, the guys with the boom boom sticks win.

      • Andrew Jackson’s portrait now hangs in the most powerful office in the world. The world belongs to the strong. I’m glad we cleared the squatters out and claimed our manifest destiny.

        • Damn straight. If the natives were worth half a shit, they would have figured out how to conquer the continent long before some Europeans showed up in glorified wooden bathtubs and showed them “modern technology”… Like the FUCKING WHEEL. Again… 1400 A.D. Almost a complete lack of domesticated animals, no wheel. That more or less tells you exactly how worthless the natives were.

        • Have you gentlemen read “Guns, germs and steel” by Jared Diamond? It deals with, among other things, why the pre-Columbus Americas likely didn’t develop as fast as the Europeans.

          For what it’s worth, if he’s at all accurate and the Europeans hadn’t landed, modulo some climate change induced changes, the Americas would probably still be mostly at the stone-age level of technology.

          All that said, if the native population had wanted to they could have wiped out every European expedition that landed. They just didn’t know there was a good reason for doing so.

        • GG&S is a good book.

          However the notion that the natives could have wiped out explorers at will is in direct conflict with history. The Incans fought a long war with the Spanish while seriously outnumbering them and the Incans were slaughtered in very nearly every battle they fought.

          I mean we’re talking a few hundred guys vs. the entire Incan Empire and the few hundred guys win and destroy the Empire in about a decade. Stone age tech vs. cannon and musket is a losing battle, even when you outnumber your enemy significantly.

          Over time it would only have gotten worse. Just ask the Zulus what happened when they met the Maxim in the First Matabele War.

          Niall Ferguson’s Civilisation: The West and the Rest covers this in remarkable depth.

        • You really need to read about the “conquest” of the Incas. It’s a story of one random Spaniard basically being totally balls to the wall insane and the Incas being pants on head retarded. Basically for the conquest to take place, everything had to line up the way it did at the time it did.

        • Yes, to a point; but then, they came prepared to conquer. If the original Columbus expedition had never made it back, though, how long before others would have tried it again?

          In the long run, though, it would have been more a matter of delaying the inevitable, I think. There was still no driver to advance technology locally so the Americas would still have held steady as Eurotech advanced. Same final result in all probability.

  6. Yep that’s shitty.

    I love how people say things like ‘it’s history’ as if that exculpates anyone from anything. I can think of lots of historical symbols that shouldn’t be celebrated.

    • That doesn’t give you the right to bitch and moan until others quit “offending” your delicate sensibilities. You precious snowflake you. History is written by the victors. Harden the fuck up.

    • I’m sure you’ll be on the forefront of protesting the ownership of Mosin Nagants and K98s then? Each from a nation that executed millions?

    • Its what is tasteful as well, if I reissue a German Luger and put a swastika on it it may have some buyers, but it is still in extremely poor taste.

  7. I live in Mankato just a few blocks away from where the hanging took place. There are several memorials here.
    Fix your typo, it’s Mankato not Makato.

  8. This is the stupidest thread I’ve read in a long time. I don’t know what a SJW is but it appears to be three letters meant to disparage people with consciences who do too much of that “thinking” stuff. What kind of idiotic company puts a noose on their commemorative rifle. Just a stupid idea for sales volume among other things. No one forced them to pull it off the market.

    And another thing, just like they have the right to make it other people have the right to complain about it. Its called freedom of speech. And that does give people the right to bitch and moan. Everybody has the right to bitch moan, Jesus! That’s the whole point of this stupid thread!

    And furthermore, stop calling everyone with an opposing view a liberal! And stop believing everything you read and are told by whatever or whoever you read or listen to. For God Sake’s!! Ahhhrrggghh!!! If this is representative of average people we’re all f*cked!

    PS – I don’t care if you find any typos or misspellings! Son of a B@tch! Sh^t!

    Now have fun ya wordsmiths!

    • “I don’t know what a SJW is but it appears to be three letters meant to disparage people with consciences who do too much of that “thinking” stuff.”

      I won’t say the term doesn’t get bandied about too loosely but your statement here proves itself to be true. You have no idea what an SJW is.

      • I assume SJW to mean “social justice warrior”. Which is either a marxist/anarchist POS overdue for a buttstroke and jail, or a idiotic manipulated fool to be smacked on the brainpan. In either case, today, invariably financed by Soros for the purpose of tearing down the US.

    • I think the point here is people getting offended by a symbol that is part of their history. Blotting it out won’t make the event go away. It’s best to commemorate even the bad things so that we don’t forget. I for one might have purchased it if it had to do with my history. And I am fine with them not producing it if they feel that was the best business decision. People getting irate on either side of the issue is a little pointless.

  9. Sure are a lot of people here who point to the wheel and forget other things which NAs were adept at. Agriculture… who taught the Euros how to plant corn with fish fertilizer? Turned a wild grass into corn? Cultivated something like 100 varieties of spuds, squash, beans, etc, which later became staples for the Europeans in Europe.

    How about those cultures who built great monuments in America? Or built great cities numbering in the 10s of thousands? Who created a calendar more accurate than was brought to them by the explorers? They beat the Europeans at astronomy. They had trade routes extending from the jungles of Central and South America to the Mississippi River basin and the Northwest. These “primitives” invented a great many tools including “rain boots” (bare feet dipped into liquid latex), arms, and even armor. They carved great edifices in stone. Developed the lost wax casting method to create golden art objects. They hunted fished without wiping out the animals they needed for their daily existence. All without the wheel.

    Today, they receive some $4Billion per year to pay for health, education, and welfare. At the same time they have negotiated with states to build casinos, and they reap the rewards of mineral rights like oil on their lands. All without one penny reduced from the $4Billion payments.

    Ten Indians in northern California, led by Kintpuash, also known as Captain Jack (c.1837 – October 3, 1873), kept United States Army forces for months in the Modoc War. They killed General Canby the only general killed during the Indian Wars. (Custer’s permanent rank was lieutenant colonel). In reaction, Canby’s successor, General Jefferson C. Davis, brought in more than 1000 soldiers as reinforcements, determined to crush the Modoc resistance. On April 14, the Army attacked the lava stronghold, and many of the Modoc scattered to escape capture. Several months later, Captain Jack and his three remaining warriors surrendered, was tried by the Army, and was summarily hanged. All that white military training took months to wage war on ten Indians and only won by the enemy giving up. This is only one example, where, like with the Chiricahua Apache, where not having invented the wheel had little to do with how successful they were.

    Meanwhile, foreign companies have mined our minerals, shipped them out of our country, without paying taxes, without our country getting a share of the profits. Just who was the dumber? Indians who were ill prepared for the invasion, or the white eyes?

    • 1. The locals teaching the colonists anything significant about farming is a myth. In North America, they were barely above subsistence level agriculture. It’s one of the reasons their population was so tiny. Their agricultural methods couldn’t support a larger one.

      2. It’s not “their” land. The land belongs to the people of the United States after we won it in a war. Vae Victis. Right of conquest is a thing.

      • All I’ve gathered from your post is that you’re either a troll or some just a real asshole. I’m sure if Walter released a PPK SS edition with a gas chamber engraved on it you’d be like oh well that’s history. It’s easy to be an armchair historian. I’m sure you’re one of the privileged classes that has never been discriminated against. If you were Indian and a manufacturer created a product commerating a massacre of your people you wouldn’t be so nonchalant.

        But then again everyone is braver behind the anonymity of a keyboard

        • I’m a fucking Kuban Cossack you fucking retard. Take your SJW bullshit and shove it up your ass. You want to talk about “discrimination”? Fuck you you worthless sack of shit. Go look up the holodomor and get back to me your walking vaginal desiccant.

        • The Kuban Cossacks also collaborated with the SS, and harassed a number of minorities post WWII. Karma is a bitch, eh pswerge?

        • I know what holodomor was as well, but if use of the word cunt is the best you can do you truly are a key board commando. There are a host of such horrors throughout history and you are not special because your people endured it. You are claiming the same victim status you criticize others of.

        • Hardly. The Cossack hosts are a perfect example of a population that integrated into larger society. We still have our culture and traditions, but we don’t sit around bitching about the “evil Russians”. It’s basically an example of what the native tribes could have become if they weren’t a bunch of spear chucking savages.

      • Yea so basically you’ve proven my point, you’re an asshole. If you the Russians made a new line of farming equipment that was called holodomor I’m sure you’d be pissed. Oh wait but if I took a line out of your book I’d just say vae victis. Or some other bullshit about kuban Cossacks not having a land anymore and it was their fault they got conquered blah blah. See? Now you’re all riled out. It’s okay kid, this lesson in humility is free.

        The more you know. But you’re still an asshole

      • You’re still an asshole. By your logic if you kuban Cossacks we’re stronger you wouldn’t have been absorbed by Russia. But then again you were horse riding savages. If we are using your logic. Got heem

        • Not quite. The Kuban cossacks were CREATED by Russia as a semi-autonomous paramilitary force back in the 19th century. It’s amazing what you can accomplish when your people adapt to work WITH the superior imperial power that conquered your territory rather than being whiny bitches about it.

      • Flu and Smallpox are the reason their populations were so tiny, and other diseases. There are descriptions from first explorers of towns along the Mississippi so thick that one stretched into another. After disease hit it was a barren shore

        The culture and populations colonists encountered were ones that rose out of a terrible destruction of the old ones. No one knows how much was lost but it could be that populations were double or triple or 5x or 10x what the colonists encountered

        • We’re talking about pre-columbian North America. The population density was basically at a neolithic level.

      • Obviously you know nothing of archeology and anthropology regarding Native American cultures.

        Native Americans were highly advanced in many areas and accomplished feats which surpassed those of Europeans. The Europeans may have had the wheel and built great castles and cathedrals, but they were jammed in together so close that sickness and disease was always a problem. Such was not the case with the people you view as primitive savages. They had written languages. They built great cities and supported huge populations, with planned means of supplying their populations with food and water. They accomplished genetic engineering before the Euros even knew what a potato was. They built roads which extend for great distances. They built huge pyramids even bigger than Egypt. You seem to judge them based on the fact that they lived simply and co-existed with their environment while whites destroyed/depleted their environment.

  10. On the other hand, I might buy an AR with the twin towers engraved on it but not if it was manufactured by a Muslim company.

    I also read that the 38 native Americans were convicted of murdering some settlers. I don’t know if that’s true but that would make me look at the noose in a different way.

    • That’s a good idea. I’d be interested in a 9/11 wood furniture set for an AR. Perhaps could include the kabal in front of a mushroom cloud on the back side. We didn;t do that yet??

    • #notanargument

      If they want to make a Bedford Forrest commemorative rifle, they have that right. It’s stupid, but free speech is not limited to ideas that are popular.

  11. Technology doesn’t make one superior to others. It means one has technology. The Iroquois confederacy held peace for 600 years on this continent by the use of consensus. It’s influence on our Constitution through Benjamin Franklin is history.
    Our record in half that time is dismal.

    • It’s easy to be at peace when you conquered or massacred all your neighbors. Let’s not pretend that the Iroquois confederation was anything more than the most successful pre-industrial empire in the region. They got to be that way the exact same way all other empires did.

  12. So the real question for the people posting on this thread (please notice that I’m not using an adverb to describe the thread in any way) is: Do you believe it is within a company’s rights to design any product they want and within any US citizen’s right to voice their opinion about said company’s product? Available responses: Yes or No.

  13. After observing the hostile exchanges in this thread I’m beginning to understand why the Coliseum in Rome was so popular all those centuries ago. Carry on. ??

  14. “I wouldn’t want a Auschwitz commemorative rifle with a picture of the gas chambers.”

    I wouldn’t want an Auschwitz commemorative rifle. Period.

  15. I want Black Entertainment Television (BET) removed from the broadcast lineup or renamed for its blatantly racist non inclusive pandering, but no luck so far.

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