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Marty Daniel, founder of gun maker Daniel Defense, did not apologize after four of his company’s firearms appeared in the arsenal used by a gunman to kill 58 people on the Las Vegas Strip in 2017 The company issued a statement offering: “Our deepest thoughts and prayers.”
And Daniel has not apologized since a Daniel Defense DDM4 rifle was used to kill 19 children and two adults Tuesday in Uvalde, Tex. The company again offered “our thoughts and prayers.”
But four years ago, Daniel, 59, admitted that he had gone too far.
Following a mass shooting at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, in which 26 people were killed, Daniel had backed a federal bill to strengthen the country’s firearms background check system. The gunman of the tragedy had a history of domestic violence, which should have prevented him from buying his weapons, including a semi-automatic Ruger rifle. But the charges had not been recorded in the correct database, so Congress passed a bill to fix the problem and then-President Donald Trump signed it into law.
Daniel Defense’s customers were outraged. They saw the bill as a Trojan horse for gun control. So Daniel stepped back. In a post on Facebook, he wrote that “I could no longer put my support behind” the bill. And he promised not to give up an inch in the future.
“I am with you and I am ready to continue fighting for our rights,” he said.
The U.S. firearms industry has long been affected by the nation’s polarizing debate over weapons, alternately offered and insulted, by its leaders as industry titans or social outcasts. But Daniel, who built his family business in Black Creek, Ga., From nowhere to the Top 25 firearms maker, is used to being celebrated for the business he set up.
The governor of Georgia cut the yellow ribbon when a new Daniel Defense firearms factory opened in 2018. Daniel and his wife regularly hand out checks totaling millions of dollars in donations. His company name appears in large, bold letters at the top of a new football stadium in the community center of Pooler, Ga., On the outskirts of Savannah.
Meanwhile, the U.S. arms industry, unique in its mass production of weapons for both military and civilian markets, is reaching its best years in history. Gun manufacturers sold about 19.9 million firearms in 2021, just behind the 22.8 million sold in 2020, according to research group Small Arms Analytics and Forecasting.
While some see guns as symbols of an inalienable constitutional right, others blame the arms industry for tens of thousands of violent deaths each year: homicides and suicides, family disputes turned into deadly and horrific massacres in the schools. The industry “exists right on the edge of morale, especially in the United States,” said Jurgen Brauer, an economist at Small Arms Analytics.
Sniper rifle maker Uvalde posted a picture of a boy with a gun before the massacre
Ryan Busse, a former executive at arms maker Kimber, sees parallels with another industry.
“I think there are a lot of similarities with the opioid industry,” said Busse, who wrote a book about his decision to abandon what he considered a radicalized arms industry.
Manufacturers of opioid pharmaceuticals, formerly acclaimed for producing an innovative painkiller, are now widely attacked for contributing to what authorities describe as an epidemic of addiction and overdose deaths.
This division in how Americans view guns can be seen in the actions of other gun manufacturers, including the country’s largest firearms maker, Smith & Wesson. The Uvalde gunman bought a Smith & Wesson M & P15, an AR-15-style rifle, in the days before his riot, along with the Daniel Defense rifle.
Smith & Wesson has been listed on the stock exchange for 170 years, with a market capitalization of about $ 690 million. Its share price rose more than 8 percent in the days following the Uvalde shooting.
The company plans to move next year from its former headquarters to Springfield, Massachusetts, the heart of Gun Valley, known for its historic role in the production of American firearms in Maryville, Tennessee. . Company leaders blamed new gun laws in Massachusetts and credited Tennessee’s “Second Amendment support.”
The arms industry has been moving south for years. Brauer said academic studies have found that cheaper labor and tax benefits were often the most important factors in these relocation decisions.
But he said he would not dismiss the importance of culture. Employees of a weapons manufacturer “might feel a little less rejected on Sunday morning” in the south.
In Massachusetts, Smith & Wesson faced local protests in front of their headquarters after the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, which killed 17 people. The gunman used a Smith & Wesson M & P15.
In Tennessee, on the other hand, Gov. Bill Lee (R) late last year appointed a munitions industry executive to the state board of education. Jordan Mollenhour owns Lucky Gunner, an online ammunition store that has been sued for supplying bullets to gunmen both in the 2014 Colo movie shooting in Aurora, with 12 deaths, and in a 2018 school shooting. in Santa Fe, Tex. left 10 dead.
Mollenhour said in a statement on the Uvalde shooting that there are “millions of armed and law-abiding Americans who would have defended these innocent children if given the chance” and that he and his company “take pride in to many of these Americans as customers and clients. ” we will continue to pray for the families of Uvalde ”.
In 2012, a mass shooting caused a business owner to reconsider. A few days after 20 children and six adults were shot dead at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management said it wanted to unload what was then the nation’s largest gun company, Remington. , and its holding company, Freedom. Group.
Sandy Hook’s gunman used a Remington Bushmaster AR-15 rifle.
Cerberus pension fund investors wanted nothing to do with the arms maker. But the private equity firm struggled to find a buyer. In 2018, after several failed sales attempts, what was then known as Remington Outdoor Co. filed for bankruptcy.
But the Bushmaster name is still alive. The brand was snatched by another firearms maker, Crotalus Holdings of Carson City, Nevada, in a bankrupt sale.
Earlier this month, a gunman used a Bushmaster AR-15 rifle to kill 10 people at a Buffalo supermarket.
Sandy Hook families announce $ 73 million deal with Remington Arms in historic deal
None of this slowed down arms sales. But there have been changes.
In the last decade, the nation has gone from a land of rifles to the home of guns. Fewer people hunt. More people buy guns to protect themselves. Long-range gun sales peaked in December 2012, at the time of the Sandy Hook massacre, according to federal data.
Over the past three years, about 60 percent of the guns sold were pistols and about 40 percent were long pistols, according to Brauer.
At the same time, AR-15 style rifles have become increasingly popular. U.S. gun manufacturers produced 1.5 million in 2017, double the number a decade earlier, according to a 2019 report by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade group that deals with firearms. as modern sports rifles.
AR-15-style rifles have allowed many arms companies to thrive, especially smaller and smaller companies like Daniel Defense. These AR-15-style weapons also drive the arms control debate. With its menacing appearance and military legacy, the semi-automatic rifle often appears in mass shootings, from Sandy Hook to Parkland and Uvalde.
“There’s this intimidation factor, something that demonstrates your manhood, that is done around the AR-15,” said Busse, the former executive of the arms company.
Few companies manufactured this type of rifle before the mid-2000s. There was not much market until the country’s ban on assault weapons expired in 2004. Now, more than 500 companies manufacture AR-style rifles. 15. And they all sell basically the same weapon, Busse said.
“What do you do to stand out? Your market. You name it, you use more incendiary actions to get attention, “Busse said.
“That’s what Daniel Defense did,” he continued. “That’s how the AR-15 boosted its business.”
Daniel Defense, like many firearms companies, has leaned toward war images to sell their weapons. “Freedom of manufacture” was one of its slogans. “More bite!” reads a 2016 ad for a new rifle called the DD5.
An online Daniel Defense ad a week before the Uvalde shooting showed a boy holding an AR-15-like rifle on his lap, along with the caption: “Train a boy on the road he should to follow and when he is old, he will not go away. ” This is a reference to a biblical proverb.
Today, the company is known for making solid, expensive firearms, especially AR-15-style rifles. Some of their weapons cost twice as much as other manufacturers. The DDM4 model involved in the Uvalde attack starts at $ 1,870. Comes in seven colors.
The rifle is one of 19 designed by Daniel Defense “to protect your family and your home,” according to the company’s website. It looks like something that a soldier or a member of the SWAT team could carry.
Daniel Defense produced more than 52,000 firearms in 2020, according to the latest data from the Office of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The company sells to the military and ordinary people. It has a funding program to help people make purchases with a monthly fee plan.
Busse said he watched in horror as the arms industry pursued sales of AR-15-style rifles. Businesses no longer emphasized hunting or picketing. They leaned toward intimidation and fear. “Tactics” was popular. People wanted a certain image. “Sofa commands,” Busse calls them.
And the AR-15 captured that image perfectly.
Busse said he felt pressure to push semi-automatic rifles while …