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Eliot Spitzer, who’s still known in some circles as Client No. 9, has surveyed the American political landscape regarding gun control in the wake of the Aurora and Sikh Temple shootings and has found it wanting. In a piece for Newsday yesterday, he lamented that, “Mitt Romney hides behind a misunderstanding of the Second Amendment, and the White House blames Congress.” But like Ford, the fallen governor has a better idea – one for taking a big bite out of semi-automatic weapons sold to the public. He wants to harness the power of the marketplace . . .

No really. To be more accurate, Spitzer wants to use government’s purchasing power to exert a little influence on gunmakers to stop selling firearms the President and Mayor Mike don’t like.

The government uses its power in the marketplace to influence private companies all the time. Here are just two examples. The infamous TARP program made bailout funds conditional on limits to executive compensation, and properly so. And contractors who want to work for government entities, at the municipal level in particular, in many cases have to pay a “living wage” and ensure diversity in their workforce.

Two sterling examples of government intervention into the private economy, to be sure.  Sterling, if you’re into government money being used to prop up too-big-to-fail, poorly run banks (some for the second and third time) and protecting the pensions and jobs of the administration’s big labor backers while throwing investors under the bus. But we digress.

Here is how it could work with guns: The Defense Department and the City of New York are among the largest purchasers of guns. If the president and the mayor truly believe that semiautomatic weapons should not be available to private purchasers, and that magazines with more than 10 bullets should not be sold over the counter, they should simply say that, from now on, the federal government and the City of New York, as a matter of public safety, will not buy any weapons or ammunition from companies that do not agree to pull semiautomatics from their stock and refuse to produce magazines with more than 10 rounds other than for sale to the government.

Obama and Bloomberg should announce that semiautomatic handguns with high-capacity magazines — the kind used in Oak Creek; Aurora, Colo.; Tucson, Ariz.; and Virginia Tech — can no longer be sold to private citizens by any company that wants to do business with the federal government and the City of New York.

The major gun manufacturers will agree to the limits imposed by their major customers.

But will they really? Spitzer vastly overestimates the City of New York’s gun-buying clout. No one, however, underestimates the feds’ pull. So for the sake of argument, let’s say the President and Mayor Mike somehow pull this off this unholy alliance, unilaterally decreeing that from this day forward, all federal and city RFPs will have a clause limiting participating contractors to only those companies that don’t sell semiautomatic firearms to the public.

Unfortunately, after literally minutes of furious Googling, we couldn’t put our hands on percentages of the major gun makers’ sales go to the guv’ment. So just for fun, let’s say – again, just for argument’s sake – that Colt, Freedom Group (Remington, Bushmaster, et. al) and Smith & Wesson decide that it’s in their long term financial interest to stop selling semi-autos to John Q. Gunowner in order to rake in all those juicy taxpayer dollars selling to Uncle Sammy. Oh, and Mike’s army, too.

Raise your hand if you think that the other gunmakers – those who’d be more than content filling the void left by the companies suckling the federal teet – will have much difficulty meeting the demand for semi-auto rifles and handguns left by the government contractors. Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

It wouldn’t take companies like Armalite, Glock, Ruger, Mossberg, Springfield, Kahr, Taurus, Kel Tec (and a dozen or so others who’d compete for all that volume) long at all to crank up production or broaden their product lines. And any companies who chose to take Spitzer’s devil’s bargain – in effect telling consumers to sod off in exchange for neutering their civvy product lines – would see a huge chunk of their remaining non-government business dry up and blow away when gunbuyers direct their disposable dollars toward the makers who aren’t seen as collaborators.

So not to burst your narcissistic bubble or anything, Eliot, but your little brainstorm betrays a crushing lack of understanding of the firearms business (not to mention the gun-buying public) in this country. It also vastly underestimates the ability of the free enterprise system to meet a need when one is presented. But that’s really nothing new for dedicated command-and-control, big government types like Spitzer, is it?

 

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52 COMMENTS

    • Apparently not. Because even though I’ve never patronized a working girl, I know enough to guess that a prominent elected official who’s a regular customer has an excellent chance of being either blackmailed or exposed by one.

      • We need to quantify what it means to “know allot about hookers”. Because I have seen photos of the hooker he frequented, and she is the sticky sweet glaze on a glazed doughnut. I mean, when I see a politician cheating, their mistress is typically a train wreck. Putting the FUUUUUGGGG in Fugly ugly.

        But his hooker…I looked at and thought…yip…I understand whe he’d risk ruining a career for a piece of that.

      • “even though I’ve never patronized a working girl”

        Bill Clinton said that he never had ‘sexual relations’ with Monica pulling off a fast-one on the FBI or Justice investigators who thought he meant no sex at all. Therefore, please define for us “patronized” and “working girl”. Thank you. BTW, does girl mean a female younger than a woman, an adult woman, both, or something else?

    • If he did know something about hookers he would have gone to an independent instead of an escort service. He would have paid less money, received better service and had more confidentiality. An independent escort cannot afford to yap about her clients because she would lose them. When you go to escort service the girl is going to talk and the madame has something on you.

      The government really doesn’t have any buying power in the general market for firearms. They buy large numbers of specific weapons from a samll number of gunmakers. I am sure Springfield Armory would be glad to sell more XD series handguns if Glock pulled out of the civilian market.

      • Smeliot beds a prostitute once a week with no condom, willing to spread who-knows-what to his wife and other interests. Then he climbs back on his imaginary pedestal and thumbs his nose at the Constitution by suggesting back door government maneuvering. Once again, Spitzer’s acting as if he’s exempt from the law and above those who obey it. He should be given no air time. His opinions and ass-hattery have less value than the toxic rain running through the NYC gutters.

  1. So disconnected from reality……

    It would be fun to see which brands, if any, would stop selling to civilians and depend on gub’mnt contracts as their sole source of income…

  2. Comedy is governments best job.You go right ahead with your bad self ,Mr Spitzer.Considering how poor shots the NYPD are,your Federal gun contract boycott would the best policy ever drafted.Gun companies can focus on making excellent guns,citizens can enjoy more competition,and NY police might start using the bumpy things on the slide.

  3. Wouldn’t work. There are only so many contracts for so many companies, and a select few already dominate military/LE contracts. Plus our civilian market is pretty darned big, you’d have to have one massive government contract to ignore us entirely!

    Glock, Sig, and S&W already dominate the fed/state/local LE market for sidearms. Many other pistol makers would dance for joy if they left the civilian market. It’s a similar situation for our military contracts, does this idiot honestly think that this would work? Good lord I hate politicians… We’d still get guns, and plenty of nice high quality ones at that.

  4. yes, the government’s about to go toes up financially and is talking about budget cuts in the defense arena amongst others. so go ahead and piss off j q public by taking the governments deal. in the mean time how do i get financing to start a semi automatic firearms plant that won’t do business with the government?

  5. All true. But if we could get just ONE (S&W, Colt or SIG) gun out of the hands of a maladjusted white man, it would be worth it!

    • Definitely! Those “white” men commit so many crimes! Just look at George Zimmerman! (but don’t look too close or he might turn out to be Hispanic)

    • So, his “dumb stick” is actually smarter than his brain….no surprise there!

      This idea might just get us some great new guns from smaller manufacturers anxious to cater to the civilian market with the bigger manufacturers out of their way. Just sayin’.

      Obviously, it would never really work, but at least it’s not another frakkin’ law for us to hatefully have to obey.

  6. Actually, what got Client #9 tagged wasn’t the hooker. It was his knowledge of structuring a transaction – ie, setting up a series of withdrawals from a bank to come in under the $10K reporting limit.

    Well, Spitzer KNEW about the federal structuring statutes, because he USED THEM in prosecuting mob characters. And yet, when he went to a bank, he structured his transaction right there in front of the bankers.

    Spitzer thereby showed that, once again, someone with a Harvard degree has a very nice credential… but the IQ of a small rodent.

  7. What if every single manufacturer told this whore master, Hizonner and Obama to just fuck off. Where would the Government get their guns?

    Then, the police could go on strike and nobody would notice or care.

  8. Let’s face it, Eliot Spitzer didn’t do anything to us that he didn’t already do to Ashley Dupre. Spitzer and Dupre were the perfect pair — two putas, hanging out together and comparing notes on how to f^ck their clients.

  9. The major gun manufacturers will agree to the limits imposed by their major customers.

    Not a problem. If the NYCPD, NYPD, CIA, ATF, and all the other alphabet soups want firearms with magazine capacity of 10 or less, no semi-auto rifles, and no assault rifles, I would not have a problem selling pistols with magazines that hold 10 or less and bolt action rifles to those alphabets.

  10. Well, there it is folks, our Problems have been solved. Eliot Spitzer blessed us with his wisdom.

    Why is it that disgraced cranks like him still rate attention from journalists?

    It would be nice if Gun mfg’s would boycott government(city, state, Federal) contracts in jurisdictions where the 2A is not respected.

    Bad Mayor! No Glock for you!

  11. The painful part about all this:
    There are PPL that will purport to support the trash he’s spewing in hopes of a political pay-off further down the road, even if that road is headed straight to hell

  12. I believe they did that with colt back during the assault weapons ban days. Last I checked I can still get AR15s.

  13. I think Eliot needs to review how gov’t procurements occur, esp. with respect to getting congressional approval and the use of the budget. You don’t think Congress can influence how and where money is spent? You don’t think they ordered the Defense Dept. to buy a 2nd engine for the F-35 for shitz and giggles, right? You don’t think that (potentially) losing jobs in their district will cause members to (not) insert special language into any funding bills? Really? Let’s be real. The US Gov’t does not have market authority/power b/c it has Congress and the narcisstic desire of its members to stay employed. By any means necessary.

  14. A manufacturer might be able to have their cake and eat it too. If this goes into effect what would stop a manufacturer from spinning off an entity to handle government contracts? With whatever separation from the parent that would be required by the dimbulbs that issue the decree. Sorta like Ruger going after contracts by spinning off Ru from Ger to cousin Paul and supplying the NYPD with Ru-Pauls.

  15. Someone should send this guy a link to the Wikipedia article on Smith & Wesson, with a pointer to the section entitled “Agreement of 2000.”

    The anger of the buying public is not something to be trifled with.

  16. Is it me, the photo, or is that how he really looks? He’s got some big ears, in fact they look more like hand holds…

    Can’t really make a comment on his plan, I don’t own a gun that the company sells to nyc or the government anymore. The ones I own or will buy from make better guns then what they would use… (Hhhmmm)

    Oh, well… Epic Fail on his part…. again…

  17. Between Spitzer and Weiner, NY is full of male Democrat politicians that got caught with their hands in the pickle jar.

  18. Whoa, that photo is ne plus ultra creepy and disturbing. He almost looks like one of the drones at Gringotts, except he’s actually real. Kudos for finding a photo that no amount of steel wool and Clorox can erase from my mind. Damn you.

    How could anyone take this morally and ethically bankrupt skid mark on the underwear of humanity seriously? Yet, I suppose some do.

  19. You know why non government purchasers pay 2 to 3 times as much than the government does? What happens when those long term profitable [non government] sales disappear? Are those arms manufactures going to switch production lines over to general consumer products when they lose their contracts like the old days?

    For instance why are SIG pistols nearly $1,000 when they are not physically worth that?

    • In a free market, things are “worth” what people are willing to pay for them. Refuse to pay $1,000 for a Sig and they will go down.

  20. or better yet, how about all the firearm manufacturers have a round table and agree not to sell to the government for two years.
    When the military starts screaming at the stupidity of it’s government that will pretty much drive the nail in their coffins.
    Every day I am seeing more and more folks weigh in on banning firearms. I certainly hope we get a major change in congress and POTUS. If not we are in big trouble.
    I am on the verge of becoming a felon if SB 249 passes.

  21. In New York State, the police have no duty to provide police protection to any particular individual. The Courts in New York have held that “generally, a municipality may not be held liable for the failure to provide police protection because the duty to provide such protection is owed to the public at large, rather than to any particular individual” (Conde v. City of New York, 24 AD3d 595, 596 [2005]; see Cuffy v. City of New York, 69 NY2d 255, 260 [1987]).

    As the Chair of the Public Safety Committee of Manhattan Community Board 12. I will be holding a Public Hearing in September 2012 on NYS Senate Bill S1427 & S1863 with an emphasis on self-defense education & firearm training for women.

    Bill S1427 PURPOSE: This proposed constitutional amendment would provide within the New York State Constitution for a right of the people to keep and bear arms for traditionally recognized purposes

    Bill S1863 PURPOSE: This legislation would remove a gun licensing officer’s ability to deny or restrict the issuance of licenses to law abiding citizens who have successfully undergone the state’s strict application process and appropriate New York State and Federal Bureau of Investigations fingerprint background check required under law. In addition, this bill will conform New York State law to current ATF requirements regarding background checks for firearms transfers.

    September 12, 2012 at 6:30 PM at Isabella, 515 Audubon Avenue New York, NY 10040. If you live in New York State feel free to take a look at the information that I will be presenting as well as sign my on-line petition included at the link below. I hope that you will come out and support me as I support you. Fraternally.

    http://cavalierknight.com/documents.html

  22. How can you prevent private companies from selling legal products to legally qualified civilians? This sounds like a half-assed idea to institute a de facto ban that would never survive a legal scratch and sniff test.

    • Spitzer is just another disgraced politician who can’t accept that his time has come and gone. Like a spoiled child, he’ll do or say anything for the attention of anyone who will listen. His missives are meaningless.

  23. I just don’t understand why this guy has any credibility accept that the Lib media just doesn’t give a shit what a politician does as long as they like him. For Christ sake, this guy was the governor of NY when he was caught in a financial sting patronizing a prostitute and he got a slap on the wrist. Credibility gone, public life over, done the end. Nope, they keep bringing him back.

  24. The guy grossly overpaid for sex and got caught and then totally embarrassed his wife and lost his elected office and this turd is in a position to tell anyone about anything?What a joke.He oughta be the mop man in a public toilet.But he’d probably screw that up too.

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