News

The REAL Reason Colt Stopped Making AR 15’s

ABC News has offered a perfect example of how the liberal mainstream media bends the truth to advance its narrative. In this case, ABC misled the public as to the real reason Colt Stopped Making AR 15’s.

ABC’s story related that “venerable gun manufacturer Colt” was halting production of the AR-15. ABC’s article wasted no time in connecting the company’s decision to recent mass shootings.

To plant that seed firmly in viewers’ minds, Mark Osborne of ABC News told readers that Colt decided based on an outcry from its customers. He reported that Colt, “At the end of the day, we believe it is good sense to follow consumer demand and to adjust as market dynamics change.”

Wow. That certainly comes off as a dramatic statement. Almost like Colt is stopping production of a gun based on mass shootings and the outcry from consumers.

ABC continued misleading readers by writing, “Dennis Veilleux, president and CEO of Colt said in a statement : ‘Colt has been a stout supporter of the Second Amendment for over 180 years, remains so, and will continue to provide its customers with the finest quality firearms in the world.’”

So, the lead story should read – “Colt halts production of AR15 after a series of mass shootings in which they were used.”

But that’s not true at all. Colt actually released a statement detailing why they did that. But to learn that you had to read almost the entire article to learn ABC News was just using the mass shooting connection to hook readers in. They eventually acknowledged, “The company did not mention mass shootings in its statement about stopping production and instead blamed the indefinite pause in making the weapon on a ‘significant excess manufacturing capacity.”

So you can see even when ABC News eventually told the truth about Colt’s motivations they made it seem like a lie. The made it seem like Colt was covering their tracks so as to not piss off their base, but was secretly agreeing with the gun control crowd by using the wording “instead blamed”.  

It’s true the company decided to stop production of the AR15 but it had nothing to do with mass shootings. However, Veilleux and Colt didn’t “blame” anyone because there was nothing to “blame” it on.

Colt made it plain weeks ago its decision is simply a matter of market saturation. As a spokesman for the gun manufacturer said, “there is an adequate supply for modern sporting rifles for the foreseeable future.”

Anyone with a marketing or business background knows that when a market is saturated, prices fall. A drop in price would hurt Colt and other gun manufacturers, so in reality Colt is trying to protect their business by temporarily halting production.

Had ABC’s Osborne cared about anything besides the narrative about banning the sports rifle due to shootings in El Paso and other cities, he would have pointed out the simple truth Colt has said from the beginning – it’s shifting its production priorities in order to focus on its biggest customer, the military.

If you compare ABC’s first paragraphs to the original Associated Press’s story you can immediately where the network strayed from the truth:

Gunmaker Colt says it is suspending its production of rifles for the civilian market including the popular AR-15.

Colt’s chief executive officer, Dennis Veilleux, says it is not permanently ending production but believes there is already an adequate supply of sporting rifles on the market. He said in a statement Thursday the company will concentrate on fulfilling military and law enforcement contracts with its rifle manufacturing.

Had the ABC talking head just read the AP report on the air, the network’s audience would have known the real story – Colt made a commonsense business decision to ensure its biggest spending client was satisfied, plain and simple.

Evan Brune of Shootingillustrated.com explains that Colt’s business has four main pillars that make up its market: law enforcement, international, and retail sales along with government contracts.

The business reality is that Colt lost its longstanding primary contract for military-issue M4s and M16s, weapons its AR15 is styled after, in 2003.

In the last decade, there has been a significant decline in demand for modern sporting rifles on the consumer side. With a heavy obligation to its military contracts and reduced demand for the rifles on the consumer side, Colt made a good business decision.

“We listen to our customers,” said Paul Spitale, Colt’s senior vice president for commercial business. “The whole basis for our reorganization was consumer feedback.” In this instance Spitale seems to be referencing his biggest consumer: military contracts, not individual buyers.

As Brune observed in his article, “To tie up production capacity in producing commercial semi-auto-only guns that nobody’s buying at the expense of outstanding military contracts is just bad business.”

But ABC News deemed reporting that Colt made a logical business decision too boring and it would have done nothing to keep the spotlight on mass shootings.

ABC News thinks the media’s narrative is more important than the truth. Let this be an object lesson – read below the fold!


Most Popular

These content links are provided by Content.ad. Both Content.ad and the web site upon which the links are displayed may receive compensation when readers click on these links. Some of the content you are redirected to may be sponsored content. View our privacy policy here.

To learn how you can use Content.ad to drive visitors to your content or add this service to your site, please contact us at [email protected].

Family-Friendly Content

Website owners select the type of content that appears in our units. However, if you would like to ensure that Content.ad always displays family-friendly content on this device, regardless of what site you are on, check the option below. Learn More



Most Popular
Sponsored Content

These content links are provided by Content.ad. Both Content.ad and the web site upon which the links are displayed may receive compensation when readers click on these links. Some of the content you are redirected to may be sponsored content. View our privacy policy here.

To learn how you can use Content.ad to drive visitors to your content or add this service to your site, please contact us at [email protected].

Family-Friendly Content

Website owners select the type of content that appears in our units. However, if you would like to ensure that Content.ad always displays family-friendly content on this device, regardless of what site you are on, check the option below. Learn More

5 Responses

  1. To add a little more insight to the untruthfulness of the Lamestream Media, no Colt™ AR-15® was used in any of these mass shootings … and to claim so is actually Libel on the part of each and every author of such articles and, by complicity, their Lamestream Media employers.

    Moreover, “AR-15” is the Registered Trademark (®) of Colt’s Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Company (n/k/a: Colt’s Manufacturing Company), so any ‘generic’ usage of the name on other, non-Colt, semi-automatic-only “Modern Militia Arms” [MMA] based on the Eugene Stoner/ArmaLite Rifle (“AR”) design is a clear violation of the U.S. Patent and Trademark law.

  2. If you explain every article that the lame stream media puts out you will have no time in your life for anything else. And the idiots that eat the crap that they spew are to brain dead to understand.

  3. Colt made a wise business decision. Colt products are, on the average, higher priced than their competitors. That said people who buy Colt products generally do it because they want the best and Colt products tend to hold their value best. After all single action revolvers have only increased in price since 1873, for example.

  4. In simple terms Colt has done what numerous businesses have done throughout history seeing the market saturated with a product resulting in a price drop temporarily changed focus on the more stable markets for their product.

    For example the crime where witnesses and survivors minutes after it happened reported the criminal used two pistols to commit the crime then four plus hours later after the feds took over suddenly an “AR 15” (that actually was not one) rifle was found behind a seat IN THE VEHICLE unused by the criminal in the commission of the crime, suddenly we no longer hear from the witnesses or survivors all we hear from the media from that point on is how he used an “AR 15” to commit the crime. Some of the victims families so believed this media falsehood they actually filed a lawsuit against the company even when its product was never used in the crime and the knock off found unused in the vehicle was another brand entirely.

    The media that have been spreading false information about AR 15 rifles from the start attempted to twist the narrative to make it sound like the anti American groups wanting to disarm the US citizens had won and the manufacturer had caved to their unconstitutional demands.

  5. Click-bait media allow stuff like this because it sells, even to us, regardless of the reason. I noticed this so-called journalist didn’t mention “gun violence” but if you look at the next article, it’s right there for everyone to read and love or hate the conclusion. This writer seems to have intentionally avoided the term.

    Gun violence is the usual go-to-term for grabbers and confiscators. It’s brilliant for public relations and incendiary to owners of firearms. Nobody says, “That gun is violent.” Literate persons say, “That person is violent.” Violence is a quality that applies to people and actions, not objects. The term is wrong in many ways, but psychologically, it is powerful.

    Although use of the term is clever, democrats cannot grasp the fact that criminals don’t ask government’s permission to use or even possess a firearm. Nevertheless, “gun violence” has become a mainstay of the democrat flimflam because it narrows the focus to fit the objective. The objective of course is to disarm the American public. Think about it. Have you ever heard the term “gun gentleness” used by a politician or anyone else?

    No? Then ask yourself why the democrat party doesn’t focus on just violence instead of gun violence. Fact is they’re after guns, not violence. They couldn’t care less about the entire field of violence because it commingles criminals with peaceable, lawful citizens and deflects from their intended focus on peaceable, lawful citizens.

    Democrats hope to transform arms owners into dependents. Once they’re dependent on the government, democrats will choose which of them they’ll allow to own arms. Unfortunately, that privilege will be reserved for party bosses and leftist billionaires.

    Democrats want citizens to believe making the U.S. safer for criminals will make it safer for their victims. Ask yourself, do you believe being disarmed makes you safer? What kind of political leader would disarm his people while howling about the peril they face?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *