RIP Benchmade Knives

[Prndll]

I primarily blame Dick's.
Ever since they decided to take everyone down that road of senseless gun destruction, we have all become hyper-sensitive to the issue.

I'm sure there have been quite a few guns getting destroyed by quite a few companies of the years without issue. Some with more legit reasons than others. But, there simply is no reason at all to advertise this activity like this if not for making a political statement. Just because of the climate of the times. If Benchmade is being honest with us (questionable) then they were had by local law enforcement. That brings us to the idea of how easy it has now become to pit us against eachother in these trying times. This situation can easily be seen as anti-gun police taking out a knife company they don't like by using underhanded means. The fact that this thread is at four+ pages and 100+ post and the fact that so many people all across the web are discussing this and choosing sides is perhaps the very thing the left actually wants. Destroy from within.

Why cut them up? Everything about guns are recyclable. Melting them down makes them just as unusable and the metal will need to be melted down at some point anyway. I see no point in 'cutting' them. It only serves the optics. Doing that only feeds emotions (on both sides). Those weapons could have been takin' somewhere else and melted. This whole thing is just a way to separate people.

If you choose not to give your money to Benchmade because of this, I understand. For me; I was never likely to own anything from them anyway. I'll stick to me Buck Knife. You should always keep in mind that there are alot of companies making alot of things with good quality. We have more good choices in firearms than we have ever had. But still, a person has to go SOMEWHERE to get arms, ammo, accessories, training, and skills. Otherwise, what's the point?

There are plenty of people that refuse to own anything made in China. The problem with that is you will end up having nothing. After being in operation for 500 years, I feel like Beretta has already learned what to do and what not to do. Although even they are not completely pure as the wind driven snow. Beretta has been with us from the very beginning though and remains at our side. I have to believe that the Beretta family wants the same things we want as Americans: a free people enjoying the blessings of liberty. But I'm sure they've made mistakes too.

With that said; I refuse to own anything with the Sony name on it. I no long shop at Dick's. No more money to Levi's or Nike. Football is no longer a thing. I can't watch 'the news' anymore unless it's local weather and traffic. These businesses might be unwitting happless fools getting tricked into insanity but.....

Who is the bigger fool?
The fool or the fool that follows them?

[buck460XVR]

Originally Posted by Bartholomew Roberts

You keep saying that; but it still isn’t true. The guns did not have to be destroyed. They could be legally sold through FFLs This police department chose to destroy them. And it did cost the taxpayers money - even if the man hours, labor, and equipment to prepare and destroy those guns was donated completely free by local businesses - the police department has to go to taxpayers to get the funds it lost by selling those guns.

....again, you're not seeing the forest thru all the trees. This police department chose to destroy them........yep, and they have that right. Just as I support the right of others to buy and responsibly use any firearm legally available to them, I also support their right to do whatever they want with them. Like folks who take a beautiful old 870 with nice wood and spray paint it camo. Is there really a difference? Like folks who just buy a new gun to sit in the safe to be fondled with white gloves occasionally. Their guns...their choice, again, it ain't my cup of tea, but then again, ain't my guns.

As for the LEA selling the guns for a huge profit. Take the way bureaucracy works and costs, the effort and cost involved in organizing a sale of a bunch of POS guns and are they really gonna make any money, or are they just gonna satisfy those folks who cry over dead guns like they do over dead puppies? Local warden tells me they have an auction for guns, cars and other things seized from criminal activities to give the previous owners a chance to get their own property back. Also, most of that property is wanted items of good quality. Not guns used by criminals prohibited from buying their guns back and POS guns that folks don't know what else to do with.

I don't support the general confiscation and burning of books either, but I could care less if someone wants to throw out their old Playboy and Hustler magazines in the dump. I see no difference here with the destruction of unwanted firearms. We all have a crusade........not all are the same. I really don't want to see a gun used in a crime....used in a crime again. Nor do I think spending $50 to sell an old Topper SS for $40 as profitable. Others are free to feel differently.

[rickyrick]

It’s all good to destroy the guns, it’s the virtue signaling by a police department that’s the problem. It’s not that Benchmade helped, it’s that they donate to anti second amendment politicians.

I don’t have any issues with quietly destroying guns. I have problems with police departments making a political statement on city managed social media pages.

[Bartholomew Roberts]

So essentially, your argument is that it costs nothing in time and labor to destroy guns; but reselling them to an FFL costs the department money? That seems unlikely to me.

And unlike Dick’s, a private corporation, or a person - the law enforcement agency is a PUBLIC agency. They aren’t free to dispose of their property however they like because they are funded by the taxpayer. When the police department buys its own guns without reaching into my pocket, it can do what it likes with them.

[rickyrick]

I agree that public entities like local governments have the obligation to decrease their bottom lines even if it’s a few dollars. I know of no business that’s going to donate time, labor and equipment without using it for a tax writ off, so the “donations” still lower the public fund in one way or another.
People help out and do charitable things all the time without feeling the need to announce it in public.
I don’t see the police department publicizing other day to day “requirements”. In many cases you will have to file FOIA requests in order to find out the activities of law enforcement.
This was a “We did something good” moment and nothing else, meant to appease the anti gun people. It’s fairly minor, yes, but not completely innocent either.
They lost all credibility with the “special tools and equipment” line. As I’ve stated before, there’s nothing special required to do what they did, nothing.

[rickyrick]

I’m sure the bayoneted AK/SKS looking (blurred picture for me) would sell for more than $40, just saying.

[stinkeypete]

Come on, let’s use practical sense here.

1. These ain’t well cared for Perazzi shotguns. They have a pile of crap, scrap, rusted and dinged potmetal, maybe a few things of any value that would need to be hand picked and carefully inspected.

2. What could go wrong vs. what could go right? Suppose one of the firearms sold is used in a crime or murder or massicre. Could someone try to sue the city? You KNOW they would.

Could the city lose millions of dollars? Possible.
Could someone lose their job? Maybe.
Could someone lose an election over that? Probably.
Could it be some boondoggle waiting hundreds of hours of someone’s time even simply because of some Facebook public relations nonsense. You know it.

While 5whiskey lives in a place that has laws, regulations and history regarding the resale of seized firearms, other places don’t and without all those protections in place, just selling stuff to “make money” is not beneficial from a cost-benefit point of view.

Why don’t people just turn in their unused prescription drugs to be redistributed to folks that need ‘em? Think of all that money! Uhhhhh... what could go wrong?

All the illegal pot seized, the cops could sell it in Colorado or The Netherlands! What could go wrong?

Smacks his head. Come on, people.

[Pahoo]

Benchmade Knives has been exposed as an anti gun company after social media posts of the Oregon City Police Department showed pictures of guns being destroyed by Benchmade.

Choices always leave consequence !!!

Too bad that Benchmade did not see this coming. …….

Be Safe !!!

[rickyrick]

Are they gonna cut up an expensive car that’s been seized? They auction crap cars. They auction houses.

Again it’s not the destruction, it’s the publicizing of the destruction combined with the knife company’s donations to anti-gun politicians.

The gun destruction brought the political contributions to light. The gun destruction on its own is meaningless to me.
Then Lying about the reason that they did it is icing on top.

I wouldn’t care less if they merely admitted that they wanted to help do it.

There’s not one bit of “Special Equipment” being used in the picture. Not one bit.

I would do it just to get the barrels to forge into trinkets, even some of the wood to repurpose

[FITASC]

And to keep costs down, I would bet they could get some Oregon gun group or association to handle everything.

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by stinkeypete

Come on, let’s use practical sense here.

1. These ain’t well cared for Perazzi shotguns. They have a pile of crap, scrap, rusted and dinged potmetal, maybe a few things of any value that would need to be hand picked and carefully inspected.

While 5whiskey lives in a place that has laws, regulations and history regarding the resale of seized firearms, other places don’t and without all those protections in place, just selling stuff to “make money” is not beneficial from a cost-benefit point of view.

Smacks his head. Come on, people.

Come on, yourself.

I don't have an inventory of the firearms that were destroyed, and neither do you. You can hypothesize all you want, but I very much doubt that there were any "pot metal" guns in that batch, and I also doubt that many were scrap or heavily rusted. You make it sound like all these guns were either Jiminez Saturday night specials, or retrieved from the bottom of a swamp after resting there for fifty years.

As for costs, don't forget that if these were all legally "firearms," they all had to be fully accounted for until they met the federal definition of having been destroyed. That means the police couldn't just box them up and hand them over to Benchmade. That would have been an illegal transfer out of police custody. The police would have had to assign at least one (or more) officers to accompany the firearms to the Benchmade facility, and to remain there and check off each firearm as it was cut up. Then, since cutting them up with an angle grinder, band saw, or plasma cutter doesn't meet the definition of destroyed, the police would have had to maintain custody and oversight of the firearms until they were in the furnace and verified as having been melted.

How much do you think all that oversight cost? At a guess, I would say easily as much as running an auction on a table in the police department parking lot would have cost.

[zxcvbob]

As for costs, don't forget that if these were all legally "firearms," they all had to be fully accounted for until they met the federal definition of having been destroyed. That means the police couldn't just box them up and hand them over to Benchmade. That would have been an illegal transfer out of police custody. The police would have had to assign at least one (or more) officers to accompany the firearms to the Benchmade facility, and to remain there and check off each firearm as it was cut up. Then, since cutting them up with an angle grinder, band saw, or plasma cutter doesn't meet the definition of destroyed, the police would have had to maintain custody and oversight of the firearms until they were in the furnace and verified as having been melted.

How much do you think all that oversight cost? At a guess, I would say easily as much as running an auction on a table in the police department parking lot would have cost.

You're assuming they actually did *any* of that.

[steves2]

"It’s all good to destroy the guns, it’s the virtue signaling by a police department that’s the problem. It’s not that Benchmade helped, it’s that they donate to anti second amendment politicians.

I don’t have any issues with quietly destroying guns. I have problems with police departments making a political statement on city managed social media pages."

This would be my position. Why do people and companies have to virtue signal? Can't they just be a cereal or clothing company? It's like Gillette with their "toxic masculinity" add in the days before the Super Bowl. What in the world were they trying to prove with that? I've been intentionally using Gillette shaving products my whole life before that.

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by zxcvbob

You're assuming they actually did *any* of that.

Actually, I doubt they bothered to satisfy the legal requirements. After all, they're cops -- why should they have to obey the law?

I was approaching it more from the theoretical perspective that doing the de-milling through Benchmade (or any source outside of the PD) was not something that could be done (legally) without cost or manpower on the part of the PD.

[Kreyzhorse]

I'm not a fan of this move by them, but let's be honest, their sales are going to be just fine

[USNRet93]

Originally Posted by Kreyzhorse

I'm not a fan of this move by them, but let's be honest, their sales are going to be just fine

yup....

https://www.instash.com/best-pocket-knife/

guess they didn't get the memo..

[rickyrick]

Yeah I’ve seen so many of these “boycotts” by gun owners go nowhere. The companies always stay in business and the anti-gun customers will pick up the slack.

[FoghornLeghorn]

Yeah I’ve seen so many of these “boycotts” by gun owners go nowhere.

And on it goes. When Bill Ruger said, something to the effect, that ordinary citizens didn't need mags over 10 rounds, the gun community was up in arms. But Ruger Firearms is going strong.

When S&W colluded with the Clinton administration and put the "zit" on the venerable firearms, the gun community was up in arms. But S&W is going strong.

When that gun/hunting reporter/commentator said something about ordinary citizens not having any business owning assault rifles ................... ok, forget him. IIRC, we actually hurt his career?

The last example is the only one we really affected.

So, yeah, our protests and boycotts don't really go anywhere. And I expect Benchmade to recover quite nicely. But they'll do it without my money.

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by Foghorn Leghorn

When S&W colluded with the Clinton administration and put the "zit" on the venerable firearms, the gun community was up in arms. But S&W is going strong.

When that gun/hunting reporter/commentator said something about ordinary citizens not having any business owning assault rifles ................... ok, forget him. IIRC, we actually hurt his career?

The last example is the only one we really affected.

You have a short memory. S&W was hurt significantly by the boycott.

http://www.actionamerica.org/guns/swbetray.html

Update: Since this article was written, Smith & Wesson has been sold. As a direct result of the agreement discussed in this article and the righteous indignation of gun owners, Smith & Wesson lost 40% in sales and was forced to close two factories. The British Owner, Tomkins, who originally paid $112 million for the company, received only $15 million on the sale, representing a $97 million or 87% loss. This shows that the real power of gun owners is not in the guns they carry, but in the wallets they carry.

S&W is going strong today because the new owners rescinded the Clinton agreement, and S&W went back to being a gun company. But it took them several years to rebound from the effects of the boycott.

[Bill DeShivs]

S&W was damaged by their decision, as was Ruger. It took years for both company's sales to go back up.
Ask Dick's how their sales are going.
We do make a difference.

[rickyrick]

Benchmade is not a gun company, nor do they sell guns. Plenty of their customers aren’t gun people, and plenty more of the customers are fudds. There’s some folks here in TFL that aren’t really bothered by this. I think they will recover.
It’s a bit different when a business dealing with guns does something that is perceived to be anti-2A

I just find that the social media presence that they have and some of their marketing conflicts with being anti-2nd amendment. They market to the tactical crowd, which would imply pro-2A.
I think that the Police department posted this without thinking it through. I’m betting that Benchmade never intend to let it out.

[Aguila Blanca]

Originally Posted by rickyrick

I think that the Police department posted this without thinking it through. I’m betting that Benchmade never intend to let it out.

I agree. But I am glad that it did come out. With the 2A under attack from every direction, we have to know who our real friends are -- and who they aren't.

[FITASC]

S&W is going strong today because the new owners rescinded the Clinton agreement, and S&W went back to being a gun company. But it took them several years to rebound from the effects of the boycott.

But they still make the internal lock

[FoghornLeghorn]

You have a short memory. S&W was hurt significantly by the boycott.

Nothing wrong with my memory. I haven't purchased a current model/new S&W since 1975. All of my collection are P&R except a M17 prelock, but even it's recessed. I simply didn't pay attention to the lock models. I wouldn't have anyway as they weren't P&R.

But concerning your conclusion. IMO, the "boycott" didn't hurt them as much as their inferior products. On the old Smith and Wesson forum ........
http://smith-wessonforum.com/forum.php
... when it was still owned by the current owner of the Sigforum (owner's name "Parabellum"), there was a sticky of actual owners of S&W where the locks failed and locked up the guns during operation. Many of them provided pictures, etc.

The new owner (goes by the screen name "handejector") conveniently lost that sticky and we lost a tremendous source of verified data concerning the utter unreliability of the locks on the S&W guns.

That sticky was a microcosm of gun owners and that era of guns were horrible. Barrels failing, shrouds dislodging, gaps in the metal, etc. They were producing crap. And people knew about it and weren't buying them.

S&W's producing that junk hurt them worse than any perceived boycott.
And your link?
http://www.actionamerica.org/guns/swbetray.html
..offers no evidence that S&W sales suffered because of the boycott. S&W sales slumped, true. But no one can demonstrate why. Your linked article was dated in 2000 and simply underscores a call to arms, so to speak. Nothing about verifiable results.

The link is from 2000. In 2001 we got a pro gun president and the climate was better. By then S&W guns were clearly junk. A boycott was also announced. But nobody can say which of these had the greatest, if any, impact.

One of my degrees is in business with an accounting major. In an advanced accounting class I did a paper on S&W's financials. Of particular interest is their 10K report of 2011. Page 20, item 1A filed on 6/30/2011 noted that S&W had enjoyed unprecedented sales and they issued this statement: “Political and other factors also can affect our performance. For example, we experienced strong consumer demand for our handguns and modern sporting rifle products beginning in our third fiscal quarter ended January 31, 2009, following a new administration taking office in Washington, D.C., speculation surrounding increased gun control…….”

No boycott there, obviously, and their financial situation was no different than a lot of gun manufacturers in that era. Several companies had fallen on hard times and boycotts had nothing to do with it. But again, with the change in the political climate, most/many companies were doing banner business. Boycotts, or the lack thereof, had nothing to do with it.

I also analyzed S&W's balance sheets from 2006 through 2010, inclusive. A good barometer of their liquidity is their cash and cash equivalents. In 2006 C&CE totaled $731,000. That’s not good for a corporation the size of S&W. Heading into the election in 2007, the panic was already starting and their C&CE jumped to $4,065,000. 2008 it’s still increasing to $4,359,000. In 2009, C&CE skyrocketed to $39,822,000. The figure remained roughly the same for 2010. Obviously, they weren’t being hurt by any perceived “boycott.”

But, we're off topic of the thread. I'm simply agreeing with the poster of my earlier post, viz. ".. I’ve seen so many of these “boycotts” by gun owners go nowhere.." Benchmade will be no different. JMO.

S&W is going strong today because the new owners rescinded the Clinton agreement,

Huh? No they didn't. The lock is still there.

[TruthTellers]

This is good stuff

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SME34Iezac