RadioShack franchises go gunning for business

Only in USA!

"subscriptions to the Dish Network package have tripled since he started giving away pistols and shotguns last autumn"

WOAH, WTF? Talk about sdrawkcab. Well done yanks, we already think your a bit "woo hoo" and now you know why!

Different demographic from Detroit?

That is so not racist: Detroit is full of dark-skinned criminals while Montana is full of light-skinned ranchers.

Stereotyping much?

Some places you need a gun

As a non-gun-owning ex-Pat Brit who now lives in the US, and not a fan of widespread gun ownership, I have to concede that there are parts of the US where having a gun makes sense. Montana is one of those places. The wildlife in those parts will eat you if they get the chance. You can't fight a bear/cougar/pack of wolves without some kind of firearm and expect to survive. Even in the suburbs it's not unknown for hungry bears and cougars to raid the garbage bins in your back garden, or break into your car to get groceries. As much as I don't like general gun ownership, if I moved to Montana I'd be down the local RS or gun store buying weapons for myself and my family and booking us into a firearms training class.

Dish Issued Statement

I want to clarify, as a DISH Network employee, that DISH issued this statement about what these independent electronics retailers are doing:

DISH Network is not providing any marketing or advertising support for any promotions relating to firearms, and we require our retailers to adhere to all local, state and federal laws in connection with their promotions and marketing activities.

They’re just firearms

I will have to admit: I don’t understand the growing stigma against firearms. Most people I know either have a gun — or one of their nuclear family members has a gun — yet I know of none, excluding policemen, who has ever has used a gun in a violent act against another. As a testament to our former laissez-faire attitudes in the U.S., I have worked in high schools that still have an old rifle shooting range in their basements (I install and service networking and security equipment).

I live in upstate New York where we have tough pistol licensing requirements seemingly only because we share a state government with the fascist hell-hole on our southeast islands. Our neighboring state, Vermont, with whom we are more alike than NYC, has virtually no handgun regulations — you can buy a pistol and carry it freely, no license or registration required — yet, among U.S. states, they are ranked among the bottom three for violent crime, probably lower than many Euro countries with impossibly strict regulations. (Montana is in the bottom ten of U.S. states.) When examining the facts alone and without bias, it is hard to conclude a concrete relationship between lax gun regulations or incidence of ownership and violent crime rates, much less any causative one, regardless of what effect one believes mass gun ownership has upon crime.

Myself, I have both a shotgun and a rifle. I bought the 12ga; the 22 rifle was given to me — despite our retarded handgun laws, NY state is still relaxed about long guns. However, contrary to the NRA’s position, I don’t have them for hunting or protection; I’ve never hunted a day in my life and I don’t expect any home invaders in this part of the state. They just sit in a rack in my bedroom wall, at the ready should I desire to shoot clays, targets, or a dying animal. (When my cat, whom I dearly loved, became deathly ill, I mentally prepared myself in case I needed to end his pain. In the end, though, the vet put him down).

While I know that guns are unpopular even among the internet libertarians of the “I.T. persuasion”, please respect and protect our liberties, including gun ownership. Don’t allow it to become another moral panic; we have too many already.

guns ok here

I am a life-long Montanan, and I think the 60% estimate of gun ownership here is very low. I bet it is closer to 90%. Most of the men I work with have several rifles, handguns, and shotguns each. Semi-auto assault rifles like AR's in .223 caliber have gotten quite popular the last few years, and a couple guys at my plant have 50 caliber rifles. Criminals here are much more nervous (and rare) here than they are over in states and countries where decent people have been disarmed.