Poverty Pony No More: Ruger Buys, Closes Anderson Manufacturing

Ruger added a well-known AR maker to its portfolio this week with the purchase of Kentucky-based Anderson Manufacturing.

A company with some 70 years of history behind it, Anderson was a big player in the black rifle game for years, making and selling whole lines of firearms, parts, and accessories for America’s most popular guns.

“After careful consideration, we made the difficult decision to sell the company and close this chapter of our story,” said Anderson in a statement across its social media channels and website, which, as of Tuesday, was non-functional. “With the sale now complete, the Anderson brand has been discontinued, and Anderson products will no longer be offered. As a result, warranty services on Anderson firearms, parts, and accessories are no longer available.”

As for Ruger, the company issued a statement clarifying that it had no intention of continuing the legacy brand or catalog from its latest acquisition. Instead, the “strategic purchase” that includes Anderson’s manufacturing facility and machinery will provide Ruger “the opportunity to work with a skilled and experienced workforce, strengthening its production capabilities and expanding its product offerings.”

The move could easily position publicly traded Ruger to become the largest rifle maker in the country. According to the latest published manufacturing statistics from federal regulators, Anderson produced 338,742 firearms in 2023, with most of those guns (308,566) being serialized AR lowers, a segment of the market that the company had long led. The next most prolific lower maker was South Carolina’s Palmetto State Armory (252,735), followed by Washington’s Aero Precision (224,333).

When speaking of rifles alone, 2023 production numbers put Massachusetts-based Savage Arms on the top of the pile with 639,591 guns, while Ruger garnered a close second place with 321,160 firearms made in its North Carolina plant and 289,791 in its New Hampshire plant, giving it a total of 610,951 rifles.

“Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who comes near that precious jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. When you give up that force, you are ruined.”
– Patrick Henry

This is the closest anyone has ever gotten to undoing much of the NFA. I don’t get how gun rights groups are responsible for the GOP refusal to fire or overrule the Parliamentarian (which affected much more than just this issue). They clearly pushed for that, hard. Given they couldn’t get it, they took the consolation prize of zeroing the tax, which itself would be the only blow against the NFA that has ever landed. That isn’t selling anyone out.

Nobody was “gaslit.” The plan was originally just to zero out the tax. Progun groups pushed for (and got) scrapping of registration too in the House’s bill. They took a big swing, but got screwed by the Democrat Parliamentarian and the GOP’s refusal to stop her. I’m not mad at them for trying.

You should be demanding of the groups you support, I don’t begrudge anyone that. But at the same time, I think a lot of grifters who have never accomplished anything of note are taking cheap shots right now with bs accusations.

Why Are Authorities STILL Hiding Social Media Profiles After High-Profile Crimes?

It happens every time there’s a high-profile crime. Law enforcement officials, in collusion with social media companies, surreptitiously disable the social media profiles of suspects, leaving Americans in the dark about their motives and political leanings.

The question is why. And who benefits?

The most recent example is Wess Roley, 20, who is accused of starting a fire in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, on Sunday so he could ambush first responders. Two firefighters died in the attack, and a third was critically wounded. Roley was later found dead on Canfield Mountain. It’s not clear whether his gunshot wound was self-inflicted or the result of a firefight with police. The Kootenai Sheriff’s office, as per usual when these things happen, has not released a motive in the shooting.

Also, as per usual, his social media profiles have been scrubbed. The gatekeepers have decided that the public will not see his posts unless and until they decide to release them. Most likely, that won’t happen until they are forced to release the files as the result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. That could take months, or even years.

The standard arguments for removing content created by suspects in major crimes are that leaving the accounts intact would encourage copycat crimes or incite violence. I asked Grok, X’s AI, about this and learned that the platform has a “general practice of not publicly detailing individual content moderation actions unless legally compelled or highly publicized.” I asked the same questions of Meta AI and was given the runaround rather than a straight answer. (My previous requests for information on how these policies work went unanswered by Facebook and X representatives.)

Instead of transparency, what now happens in the wake of a major crime is that, after social media profiles are scrubbed, the internet immediately goes to work creating fake profiles that circulate and are viewed by thousands or sometimes millions of users, as happened after Matthew Crooks tried to murder Donald Trump. There are also multiple fake profiles for Roley floating around social media today.

How does that help anything?

Investigative journalist and self-described “FOIA Queen” Sarah Fields described what she discovered about Roley in an X post:

Roley’s social media activity, particularly on X, revealed disturbing content. He posted about his disdain for authority figures, including police and firefighters, and expressed radical views. His posts included threats and general hostility toward society, which raised concerns among those who followed him. Additionally, he was known to have made threats against his family, leading to a no-contact order being issued against him.

Fields told PJ Media. “I believe that the public has the right to know. I think we all have a right to know all of the factors that lead to someone committing these heinous acts.” She added that scrubbing the profiles “gives the FBI, media, etc., the opportunity to create a narrative about the situation. Which they are already doing.”

Wouldn’t it be better for everyone if something like this happened in the wake of a major crime event?

  1. Law enforcement identifies a suspect.
  2. Law enforcement tracks down the suspect’s social media profiles and requests that the platforms preserve the content and ensure that it cannot be manipulated.
  3. Law enforcement verifies which social media profiles belong to the suspect, allowing fake profiles to be immediately debunked.
  4. End of story. Instead, we have to play hide-and-seek and hope that we eventually uncover the truth by FOIA or by lawsuit.

And it’s not just social media. Remember how authorities fought tooth and nail to avoid releasing the manifesto of Nashville Covenant School shooter Audrey Hale? After a flurry of lawsuits from media organizations and public transparency advocates, we finally got to see what was in it.

One of the plaintiffs who sued the FBI was the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, which reported:

On March 27, 2023, a transgender shooter entered The Covenant School in Nashville and tragically killed three nine-year-old students and three adults—an administrator, substitute teacher, and a custodian. Law enforcement officers bravely entered the building and killed the shooter.

Our client requested a copy of the manifesto from the FBI through a formal FOIA request, which was denied by the Biden-era FBI. WILL sued, and after FBI Director Kash Patel was confirmed, settlement negotiations began to resolve the matter. The FBI then released 120 pages of the manifesto and settled the case with WILL.

Whom did the delays benefit? It arguably benefited the trans lobby, which had an interest in covering up the story, and Joe Biden’s flailing re-election campaign. But the public? Not so much.

Now that Kash Patel is in charge of the FBI, it’s time to stop scrubbing the records and hiding the backgrounds of these sickos. Full transparency. Now.