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February 18, 2014 11:22 AM UTC

So What You're Saying Is, Magpul Played Us Like a Fiddle

  • 26 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols
Colorado-based gun accessory maker Magpul.
Colorado-based gun accessory maker Magpul.

A typically slanted write-up from the conservative "news" site Colorado Observer responds to criticism of Erie-based gun accessory maker Magpul, who is moving their manufacturing operations to Wyoming and Texas with millions of dollars in taxpayer economic development subsidies:

Magpul has come under fire from the left since announcing Jan. 2 that the company intends to move its manufacturing facility to Cheyenne and its corporate office to Texas, making good on last year’s promise to leave Colorado as a result of Democratic gun-control bills signed into law by Gov. John Hickenlooper.

A Feb. 10 article on the liberal website ColoradoPols carried the headline: “Reminder: Magpul Played Everybody Like a Fiddle,” while the progressive Colorado Independent ran a Feb. 6 article with the headline, “Magpul is relocating because it landed long-sought financial deal.”

“Far from a hardship, [this] could be the most profitable ‘crisis’ in Magpul’s history!” said Colorado Pols in a Jan. 3 post.

Republicans described the reports as an effort by the left to discredit Magpul and rewrite the narrative of last year’s gun-control melee, which resulted in the historic recalls of two Democratic state senators and the resignation of a third.

“They [Democrats] passed a bill that drove hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars of revenue out of the state of Colorado,” said state Sen. Greg Brophy (R-Wray). “How do you defend that, other than to demonize the people who left by saying, ‘Good riddance, they should be gone?’” [Pols emphasis]

Unsurprisingly, Valerie Richardson of the Observer omits the key fact central to our previous stories on this: as reported by local news media last year, Magpul specifically sought and was offered economic subsidies by Texas and Wyoming a year before the gun safety bills later used as a pretext to justify Magpul's move were ever introduced. Setting aside that rather glaring discrepancy, here's what Magpul's spokesman says about those subsidies:

Anderson countered in an email exchange with the Observer “the Wyoming incentives are not ‘subsidies.’”

“[T]hey are loans from Wyoming to the local economic development office Cheyenne LEADS,” said Anderson. “Cheyenne LEADS will use those state funds to build a 100,000+ sq. ft. facility.”

He added that, “LEADS is leasing the facility to Magpul and will repay those state funds.  Magpul has an option after year five of the lease to purchase (the) facility for the full construction cost.”

According to all reports we've read out of Cheyenne, this just isn't accurate–a significant component of the package offered to Magpul consists of grants, not loans. And if you read the weasely language carefully above, he doesn't actually say Magpul is obliged to repay the "full construction cost"–that's just an "option!" According to the Wyoming Eagle Tribune, Magpul is only contractually on the hook for $6 million as part of a "revenue recapture plan."

Bottom line: The superficial story of Magpul's impending departure from Colorado is one that can be gainfully spun by Republicans, as it services lots of other Republican lines of attack. But the truth of this story is very different. When people learn that Magpul was shopping for economic subsidies from the same states, Wyoming and Texas, that it has now announced their move to, a full year before the gun safety bills Magpul claims were the justification for doing so were introduced–even before the mass shooting incidents in Aurora and Connecticut that motivated these bills to begin with–their reaction inevitably changes.

Of course it changes. Because they realize we were all being played like a fiddle.

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26 thoughts on “So What You’re Saying Is, Magpul Played Us Like a Fiddle”

  2. It's just incredible to me that Colorado Pols and Democrats are happy these jobs and millions in revenue are leaving. How can you be so callous about Colorado's economy?

    2. We're not callous about that. What we are callous about is a company bolting for incentives under the guise of exploiting people's political beliefs to cover their own asses when they leave for said incentives.

      And here you are defending their actions. 

    3. Mod, They don't care.  As long as their socialist cabal is preserved, they are good to go.  

      I personally think they would prefer that the only jobs left are a tour guide and a sheep herder. (excpet maybe they will let DT still do some programming if he stays quiet and doesn't get in the way).

          1. You gotta love the Righties. Corporations can play them like complete saps, use their loyalty and simple-mindedness with no fear of reprisal, piss in their faces and walk away with a bag of cash, and the Righties defend them and beg to come back and give them more of the same….and they say we Libs are deviant? Their psyches are so twisted, they make a Mapplethorpe exhibit look like Norman Rockwell….

        1. Gunorrhea Gang. I like it. Tip. The best way to ignore trolls is just ignore. When they look to see if their comments have any responses we want them to see nothing. Nada. Zilch. It makes them worthless as trolls. It shames me to think what I may have been contributing to if they're paid by the number of responses they get.

          1. Your' "tip" is unnecessary; I know quite well how the trolling game is played, by whom, and for what purposes.

            I couldn't help but npotice however that you were among the most active responders to the troll AC for weeks following his arrival…

  4. …"an effort by the left to discredit Magpul and rewrite the [Gunorrhea Gang's deceptive and disingenuous] narrative of last year’s gun-control melee…"

     

    Wah wah wah!

  5. Are you saying that if the magazine ban did not go through, when Magpul said they would leave if it did, that they would have left anyway? I find that hard to imagine, from a capitalist pig perspective in that it would be consumer suicide. Its easy to say they played us like a fiddle, but if the mag ban did not succeed, it would be hard to say that, unless of course, they left. All speculation at this point…

  6. I did read it. I also recall reading I thought on this site criticism that Magpul had NOT left was them playing us- now that they are it’s that they were leaving anyway? I would think that if the magazine ban failed and Magpul left, that would be playing us like a fiddle- but we all know thats not precisely what happened. So speculating that they would have left anyway based on the provided evidence sounds like someone playing the fiddle, just not Magpul.

    1. Jesus H. Christ, if you Gundamentalists can't even see when your sacred magazine maker has played you for patsies, when they were actively seeking incentives to move A YEAR BEFORE the dreaded bills were introduced, how are you ever going to coordinate your brave rebellion against the evil forces of whoever the hell it is you think you're arming against?  

          1. You mean the fact that other states offer relocation incentives Colorado does not? I was offered 10 years of no taxes to relocate my business to New York… In fact, so were you, as it is broadcasted on national television.

            Weighing your company’s best option is not playing your customer base like a fiddle. There is no evidence provided that supports the notion that Magpul would have left even if the mag ban failed. That being said,”what difference does it make”?

  7. Maybe Rep. Jared Wright 'highly trained peace officer' can be the new spokesman.  "I don't always leave my loaded gun lying around unattended in public places, but when I do I like it to have an extra large clip"

     

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