It was Inevitable: A Liberal Inflicted Woe

 So the inevitable has happened.

Strained gun businesses have reached the breaking point.  Excessive regulations, bans destroying product lines and rampant inflation ruining the import power of the Canadian dollar are all to blame.  And, of course, these things can be attributed squarely and directly on failed economic and safety policy by ideological idiots.

2 firearm related businesses folded in Alberta in the last 14 days.  One is a small hobby sized business selling accessories and the other is a medium sized one with employees and a storefront.

I always pay attention to what other businesses are doing.  This weeks survivors (including myself) are struggling.  They are offering sale after sale to keep cash flowing taking often an unsustainable 2 to 5 percent profit.  Even with sales, no one is buying.  People are starved for cash as their food and mortgage bills have exploded; they can't buy guns.  

The industry is in dire shape.  These last 2 weeks combined with the other gun business failures over the last year show, very clearly, that the collapse has begun. 

I'm Going to Die of Fear and Hysteria... Just Not My Own.

I’m going to die of fear and hysteria…just not my own.

The rampant fear mongering of the Covid-19 virus has sport leagues and schools shutting down.  For a virus that is contagious but not all that life threatening.

Specter Arms makes over 99% of its revenue at gun shows.  Should these shows get shut down we would literally be out of business.  Already, we have lost our largest profit show in High Prairie.  Should we lose Dawson or Prince George we are unlikely to exist past summer of 2020.

But it is not just us.  How many parents in Ontario have just been put out of work because now they can’t send their kids to school?  How much financial hardship has the entire province been forced to endure?  They can’t afford rent, mortgages, food because they have children who are now unexpectedly home.  And if you leave them home alone, the same government who took them out of school will put you in jail.

And now, just like that, the government controls all gatherings, commerce and leisure.  They decide if you can leave your house or if you can travel.  They have used fear, misinformation and mass panic to get society to willingly surrender its freedom. 

Dark days ahead.

The Shadow Registry and Specter Arms

The new bill, C-71, is poised to create a nightmare scenario by establishing a Shadow Registry.  It is essentially a registry jointly maintained by both the government and licensed firearms dealers as a condition of their license.

So what is the purpose of the Shadow Registry?  Firstly if we think the registrar will follow the letter of the law and not ask for the make and model (like the law suggests) we are deluding ourselves.  But let us assume that they follow the law to the letter.  With private transfers, there is nothing to say that non-restricted transfers need a model or serial number.  Just a verification that a transfer has taken place.  This allows for the government to accurately determine how many firearms are owned.  Inevitably this will help prevent enterprising individuals from using methods to obscure the Shadow Registry kept by gun dealers.  You might ask “what value does knowing that a gun has been transferred with no other attached information?”  To get the answer you need to look at the inferred and stated goals of Canada’s gun control scheme; disarm everyone.  By recording how many people had firearms transferred to them and how many went out, the government can accurately determine the real amounts of guns owned by new generation shooters.  When it comes time to send the door kickers to take the guns, they either get them all or arrest the gun owner because the numbers don’t match up.

And then there is the lie that gun records from retail businesses will need a warrant to access.  Retail records do not need a warrant.  This is a holdover from the old Long Gun Registry (LGR) (which became irrelevant when it was abolished).  Although it is said the records will require a warrant, it does not repeal the section that permits “looking at the books” and making copies whenever they want.  It is not common knowledge but a firearms business is given their ledger to record firearm sales.  This ledger is provided by the Chief Firearms Officer of the province they are operating out of.  This alone is a subtle reminder that you don’t own the ledger or the information within.

What does this mean for Specter Arms?

Specter Arms has built its business on the philosophy that information and privacy are valuable.  As soon as the LGR was abolished, we stopped keeping this information.  We would check if the license was valid yes, but never did we hold on to that information.  Our sales literally rose over 1000% when the LGR was gone.  What once was a struggling business became viable with our annual growth (post 2012) at 13% per year.  Why was this?  Well, privacy was the big thing.  Pre 2012, there was no reason to buy from anyone except a large retailer.  There was no privacy because of the LGR and buying from a large online retailer was convenient.  This sentiment is mirrored by the fact that from the inception of the LGR to its demise, gun businesses evaporated to only 1/6th of their previous numbers.  Post 2012, new businesses flourished.

Over 99% of SA revenue comes from gun shows.  Without the means to transfer non-restricted firearms on the weekends (CFO offices are closed), the gunshow is destined to die.  No gun shows, translates into a projected decrease in revenues of over 99%.

We at SA have a sneaking suspicion that the large gun dealers and importers are happy with this scheme.  It only serves to drive more business their way by resuming the LGR trend of wiping out small and medium business competitors.  It wipes out the gun show and all the private and grey market dealers as well.

With the new Shadow Registry, we at SA need to re-evaluate our business model.  If we are unwilling to change, we will die a swift death along with the hundreds of new small firearms businesses that are destined to die.

SA has always subscribed to an intelligence driven model which uses social media, statistics and online forums to predict trends and follow those trends.  The Shadow Registry is not a surprise to us and we started transitioning away from sales to manufacturing.  This plan is uniquely the safest but also the most dangerous; it is quite the oxymoron.  It is safe because re-investing in inventory for sales is bound to leave us caught with thousands of dollars in inventory that will never be sold.  It is dangerous because if we can not get the S3 and S5 rifle projects to market before the money runs out, we will be finished.

It is a gamble but the alternative is to close down and wait for a friendly government to undo this damage.  We will not go down without a fight; who dares, wins.

Introduction

I am often sent Emails asking for advice about firearms, calibers, gear, training tips, optics and even politics and I try really hard to offer well thought out answers.  As my business is small I try hard to put the "Service" into customer service while trying to use my own life expirience to develop and bring new tactical products to market. 

What I seek to do here is offer some of my own ideas.  Agree or disagree, I hope to provoke ideas on the very things that people ask me about as well as my commentary on the pressing interests and concerns of the Canadian firearms community.

Until next time,
Chris