Investments in weaponry

[Lankypeters]

Check your portfolios and retirement accounts for any and all investments in the sale and manufacture of weaponry and, if you see fit, instruct the appropriate persons to divest these holdings from your accounts. We are not powerless in response to the tragedies that occurred last week in Newtown. Financial boycotts work. Aim at the pocketbook!

[jawjateck]

Several gun makers are privately-owned, but Smith & Wesson (ticker SWHC) is a publicly-traded company. I would also recommend that you screen your portfolio to remove other death-causing companies in the following industries: defense, aerospace, airlines, automotive, alcohol, tobacco, restaurants and grocers (that dang alcohol thing again), pharmaceuticals, HMOs, managed care, hospitals, mining, heavy equipment, energy (coal, oil, natural gas, refining), snack foods, and soft drinks.

 

That would leave a more socially-responsible investment portfolio.

[Kevin Slater]

So I should sell my Vice Fund?

 

Kevin Slater

[gallahadesquire]

Call me stupid. What difference does it make if any individual owns any of these stocks? After all, it's not like Tony Stark stopping to make military armament.

 

It may make an individual investor feel socially responsible, but I don't think it will change the reality of the manufacturing process.

[operalover21]

Check your portfolios and retirement accounts for any and all investments in the sale and manufacture of weaponry and, if you see fit, instruct the appropriate persons to divest these holdings from your accounts. We are not powerless in response to the tragedies that occurred last week in Newtown. Financial boycotts work. Aim at the pocketbook!

 

This must be stupid suggestion number 46 in response to last week's tragedy. The only meaningful response is a commission to look at all possibilities -- gun laws, mental health laws, video game and film violence, etc. -- that lead to these types of things. I believe Pres Obama will propose such a commission. Knee-jerk boycotts are not the answer. If every single person boycotted a company or business that did something that they didn't like politically there would be no businesses left in this country. Is that what you want?

[KMEM]

This must be stupid suggestion number 46 in response to last week's tragedy. The only meaningful response is a commission to look at all possibilities -- gun laws, mental health laws, video game and film violence, etc. -- that lead to these types of things. I believe Pres Obama will propose such a commission. Knee-jerk boycotts are not the answer. If every single person boycotted a company or business that did something that they didn't like politically there would be no businesses left in this country. Is that what you want?

 

I agree with you and I welcome any discussion about these topics but I don't want knee-jerk "political" solutions either.

 

Best regards,

KMEM

[seeker630]

Investment firm drops stake in Bushmaster

 

FWIW: http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/newtown-shooting-investment-firm-drops-stake-bushmaster-owner/story?id=18004042

[+ Tom Isern]

one might have reasons to disagree with lankypeters' suggestion, but i hardly think it deserves being called "stupid."

 

"This is the kind of power individuals have through their investments and stock ownership. A teachers’ pension fund like CalSTRS, which manages $155 billion worth of investments, ultimately answers to the teachers who make it up. If the teachers are outraged by the proliferation of assault weapons, they can act collectively to remove their investment from companies that make them. Just the threat of it and Cerberus dropped its gun investments, a move which will no doubt shake up the industry–before any bill hits the House floor."

 

http://tv.msnbc.com/2012/12/18/is-your-money-invested-in-guns-use-your-power/

[Kevin Slater]

one might have reasons to disagree with lankypeters' suggestion, but i hardly think it deserves being called "stupid."

 

"This is the kind of power individuals have through their investments and stock ownership. A teachers’ pension fund like CalSTRS, which manages $155 billion worth of investments, ultimately answers to the teachers who make it up. If the teachers are outraged by the proliferation of assault weapons, they can act collectively to remove their investment from companies that make them. Just the threat of it and Cerberus dropped its gun investments, a move which will no doubt shake up the industry–before any bill hits the House floor."

 

http://tv.msnbc.com/2012/12/18/is-your-money-invested-in-guns-use-your-power/

 

CalPERS (the California Public Employees' Retirement System) may be a better example of how to leverage your portfolio toward social responsibility. Rather than simply divesting, it's well known for using its position as a significant shareholder to encourage change within an organization.

 

Kevin Slater

[Guest countryboywny]

"When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."

[seeker630]

"When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns."

 

and the police, and the army, and the state militias and .....

[instudiocity]

Vice Fund[/url]?

 

Kevin Slater

Hell, I drop THOUSANDS into Vice and all my investments are washed-up! LOL!

[instudiocity]

and the police, and the army, and the state militias and .....

A non-emergency call in my neighborhood requires LAPD 45-60 minutes to arrive. The Miley Cyrus SWATTING almost didn't happen because the report of a man with gun in the area went on HOLD at 911 Center for 15 minutes. Yeah, we can COUNT ON THE POLICE to protect us from whackos. (That's sarcasm!)

[bigvalboy]

A non-emergency call in my neighborhood requires LAPD 45-60 minutes to arrive. The Miley Cyrus SWATTING almost didn't happen because the report of a man with gun in the area went on HOLD at 911 Center for 15 minutes. Yeah, we can COUNT ON THE POLICE to protect us from whackos. (That's sarcasm!)

 

lol....somtimes longer. I called once at 9 pm when I saw a suspicious guy hanging around my neighbors house, who was on vacation at the time. I left my contact number and waited and waited and waited, finally going to bed around 11 pm, after repeated calls to the dispatcher. My phone finally rang at 1 am, asking me if the the guy was still out there. RIGHT!!. I think my actual response was, "Your kidding right"

[seeker630]

A non-emergency call in my neighborhood requires LAPD 45-60 minutes to arrive. The Miley Cyrus SWATTING almost didn't happen because the report of a man with gun in the area went on HOLD at 911 Center for 15 minutes. Yeah, we can COUNT ON THE POLICE to protect us from whackos. (That's sarcasm!)

 

I responded because your slogan, like most, is only half-true, and I think it's dangerous to simplify.

 

I actually don't have a problem with someone keeping a secured handgun in their home for protection, provided they have had some training - especially when law enforcement is stretched as thin as yours apparently is.

 

I do take issue with the legality of privately-owned assault weapons.

[Lankypeters]

Only on a forum to which posters need not sign their names would someone likely begin with the word "stupid." Regardless of your response to my post, this is an insulting and disrespectful word to use. I think a little more civility may be in order.

 

The logic of what follows in your post is skewed. You write, for example, the "only." My suggestion did not imply it was the only means of dealing with this situation. As for your suggestion being the "only" one that will work, I recall what my high school science teacher said: "When true or false items contain words such as "always," "only," "never," etc., the item is most likely false. Your proposal indeed makes sense. But it is not the "only" means. And I will suggest again that financial boycotts have often been effective and, in some cases (but not "all" cases) effective.

[+ Tom Isern]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/12/18/targeting-the-money-behind-guns-works/

[Lankypeters]

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2012/12/pensions-the-soul-of-private-equity.html

 

Guns and the stock market