No more camelbaks at REI for now…

[BlackHatGuy]

Anyone seen this?

“<b></b>03.01.2018

REI does not sell guns. We believe that it is the job of companies that manufacture and sell guns and ammunition to work towards common sense solutions that prevent the type of violence that happened in Florida last month. In the last few days, we’ve seen such action from companies like Dick’s Sporting Goods and Walmart and we applaud their leadership.
 
This week, we have been in active discussions with Vista Outdoor, which has recently acquired several companies that are longtime partners of REI. These include Giro, Bell, Camelbak, Camp Chef and Blackburn. Vista also owns Savage Arms, which manufactures guns including “modern sporting rifles.” 
 
This morning we learned that Vista does not plan to make a public statement that outlines a clear plan of action. As a result, we have decided to place a hold on future orders of products that Vista sells through REI while we assess how Vista proceeds.
 
Companies are showing they can contribute if they are willing to lead. We encourage Vista to do just that.”

[John S.]

Pretty aggressive stance huh. REI must be doing well financially to begin to throw their weight around politically.

[Lester Moore]

Is this a polarizing rabbit hole that REI (or any other company) wants to go down? I wonder how much good it does for any parties involved. REI may find that they have a lot of customers who decide the following:

I have decided to place a hold on future purchases of products that REI sells while I assess how REI proceeds.

[BlackHatGuy]

The story I read about this said that REI was doing well financially. I also think they probably know their customers fairly well and probably know that while they might lose some customers, they probably won’t lose many and will gain good press out of it.

After all, REI is a lifestyle store more than an outdoor store, as we’ve talked about before, and their lifestyle isn’t targeted toward hunters and such.

[Sarah Kirkconnell]

A little tale I don’t talk about often. I quit working with a trail publication in REI’s mother state, because they got all up and into political crap. I had enjoyed my work I did for 3 years, but the new editor came in, had a very left leaning take and wanted to burn down the place. The only politics they needed to get involved in was fighting for public lands and preservation – and you guessed it, he wanted to use the non-profit to start his campagain against law abiding gun owners. I wrote a letter to him, about why I was leaving. I later did work again for them, after he left as editor.

REI is doing it because it is cheap publicity and the very liberal and left leaning Seattle gets a big group hug and everyone feels special. In the end, they should stick to what they do: Selling gear. Leave the political junk out of it, and be a retail store. I don’t want politics handed out while I am shopping, no matter WHAT side the politics are on. Same with why I quit writing for the publication above. It’s polarizing and turns off people quickly.

[Michael Gillenwater]

Interesting terminology.

“Political junk” = tens of thousands of additional gun deaths in USA each year*

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_firearm-related_death_rate?wprov=sfti1

* Relative to all other developed countries

[Nick Gatel]

This may turn into a Chaff thread ;-)

REI is doing it because it is cheap publicity and the very liberal and left leaning Seattle gets a big group hug and everyone feels special. In the end, they should stick to what they do: Selling gear. Leave the political junk out of it, and be a retail store. I don’t want politics handed out while I am shopping, no matter WHAT side the politics are on.

Agree. Let the consumers decide what they want to buy and let them boycott Vista Outdoor’s brands if they wish. This issue really isn’t that risky for REI and they’ll be getting a lot of free press — just as they do for their Good Friday Opt Out campaign.

FWIW, I’ve been a REI member for a long, long time. My customer number is only 6 digits.

[David Thomas]

I memorized my REI number long before my SSN.  Conveniently, they both start with 564, but my REI number is 2/3 the length of my SSN.

Yeah, there’s some risk to them of pro-gun types boycotting them, but, er, there’s not a lot of camo gear on the racks (i.e. NONE), and Cabela’s, Sportman’s Warehouse, and Bass Pro Shops have the hook&bullet crowd all sewed up.  And there is some risk to doing nothing – pissing off their base of tree-hugging liberals who love their kids more than their guns.

Some of us here at BPL are in that tiny sliver of overlap in the Venn Diagram – we put meat in the freezer but we do it with UL gear.  And guess what?  None of the multitude of actual hunters I know use an AR-15 with a 30-round clip.  None of the hundreds of pounds of meat I’ve schlepped out was taken with a low-recoil, high-capacity, high-rate-of-fire gun.  Actual hunters use scoped, bolt-action rifles of sufficient range, accuracy, and caliber to ensure a clean kill.   You hunt all week long and take one or two or maybe 3 shots.  There are some people who shoot a dozen pigs from a helicopter or a score of schoolchildren, but not among the people I hike with.

I’m president of a cooperative (only 1/20 of REI’s size) and I’m all about member choice.  A middle-of-the-road option would have been to label all Vista products as such and let their members make their individual buying decisions.

It reminds me of last year, “I was not expecting the park rangers to lead the resistance, none of the dystopian novels I read prepared me for this but cool.”  Who’d have thought corporate America, including Dick’s and Walmart, would start to implement some of the most obvious constraints on teenagers purchasing anti-personnel weapons?

[Kevin Babione]

I think REI’s approach here is a much less “in your face” political statement than putting signs above the Camelbak display saying something like:  “The parent company of this manufacturer makes guns”.  I, for one, had no idea that those manufacturers were associated with a company that makes firearms.

[Kattt]

You know what would be more meaningful in my opinion ? If they did that and did not advertise it. Maybe someone would find out and give them kudos. So much of this has to do with PR and image, which is fine and understandable but yeah.

If something good comes of it then it was worth it.

[AK Granola]

Good for REI. I worry about my kids daily and can’t wait until they’re no longer in public school and college, so that there is less chance of random violence in their lives. I worry about a friend who is a principal whose school recently narrowly avoided a mass shooting because staff followed proper lockdown procedures, and kept the gunman out; you didn’t get to read about that in the paper, thankfully. At work we go through active shooter training every year and it sucks. It just really sucks, walking through my workplace and picturing all the places I could hide, and where I might be able to fit 20-30 students to conceal them. What an absurd reality. As for Camelbak, I can live without any specific product, if by doing so it creates a positive result in the world.

[Travis Leanna]

I come back from the dead to say this…

I love that movie. But now to be serious.

It’s really….REALLY…not that oppressive to make deadly weapons a scrutinized lawful responsibility. The notion that guns are a “god given right,” or, “a necessity as an American,”  is vastly outdated and certainly out of context of modern times.  The laws, and first and foremost, the attitude of the rank and file American, need to adapt to the times within reason. The laws surrounding slavery, womens’ suffrage, and the FLSA (child labor laws) are clear examples of prudence and reason (even in their shortcomings) eventually championing the ridiculous reality of the times. When will reason overtake zealotry with guns?

I like shooting a gun now and then. I have family that harvests deer each year with rifles for eating. But this rabid defense of “protecting your guns from ‘some boogeyman who’s gonna take ’em away [namely Obama for the last 8 years, who, may I remind you, never once tried to actually do so]'” is doing you no good.

I’m not going to change any minds, for such is our partisan fortifications. But dammit, if the US government can openly demand that a madman 6,200 miles away cease and desist with his nuclear weapons, why can’t that same body of politicians demand a shred of sanity regarding the domestic epidemic of Americans killing Americans, with American made guns?

Oh, I forgot. Religion, power, and $$.

[John S.]

“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

[George F]

Strangely enough, while there are a number of “well regulated militias” the bulk of them seem to be anti government. This opens a huge can of worms as to what the “security of a free state” really means.

[Ken Thompson]

A well regulated militia was taken out with one drone strike. 2A made sense when black powder was the top of technology. No longer.

[Travis Leanna]

Yes, the Second Amendment exists. The constitution, an 18th century document, still provides us that right to this day; and nobody is actually trying to get it removed. The constitution itself, not even an amendment, also had things like the Fugitive Slave Clause. But the times changed, and the 13th amendment was ratified.

Or, in keeping with the old trope of “a well-regulated militia,” I want Walmart to start carrying the M1 Abrams and the F-16 jet. Maybe get the MIM-104 Patriot on Amazon Prime? I need them for protection against a tyrannical government.

But again, I do not actually think I’m gonna change a single mind. I mean geez, look how long it took Henry Shires to reconsider cuben. Anyhoo, back to my hammock.

[Author]

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