Wednesday, May 19, 2010

The Cost of Doing (Gun) Business...

While wandering around the NRA convention this past weekend, we happened across the Charter Arms booth. Charter Arms has made a splash in MA by having their pistols approved for sale for the first time since the draconian laws Consumer Protection regulations went into effect in 1998. It's a bold, strong statement for Charter Arms to make, and is a significant financial investment.

I took a few minutes to talk to Nick Ecker, the president of Charter Arms, about his company's experience in getting his handguns approved for sale in Massachusetts. The process is long and involved, and incurs a not-inconsequential expense in man-hours, materials, fees, and machining. Nick was kind enough to walk me through the process by which a new handgun is submitted and summarily approved for sale.

First and foremost, the guns must meet the criteria set forth by the Consumer Protection regulations - 10 pound DA trigger pull, drop test, etc. Before any handgun can be put on the Approved Firearms Roster, it must comply with these regulations. In order to accomplish this, we were told the following must take place:
  1. The handgun in question must be submitted to the Firearm Testing Lab. Three units are to be supplied, and all three are destroyed after testing. The fee for this testing is $2,500, plus approximately $600 in ammo.
  2. The legal fees that accompany this testing are approximately $2,000
  3. Each firearm must have a second serial number stamped - not engraved - on the frame somewhere. This is only for Massachusetts.
  4. Safety paperwork confirming the firearm's compliance to be filed with the AG's office.
Once all of these steps have been followed, a letter is sent to the Attorney General's office, and if the AG does not specifically deny the sale of the gun, it can go forth and be sold in the Volksrepublik. The AG has twelve weeks to approve or deny, and from what we were told by Charter Arms, what happens most often is that they get no response and have to wait the full 12 weeks before they can sell the pistol. They have to submit this paperwork for every firearm they wish to sell in MA - even for the difference finishes available.

In a nutshell, there's over $6,000 in product, ammo, lawyers, and fees before they can sell Gun One. For each unique model - and a change from SA/DA to DAO counts - this entire process must be followed before the gun can reach the consumer. If there are multiple finishes to a firearm available, they must all be listed before the gun can be sold. This doesn't count the extra man-hours needed to get all this ready, nor the record-keeping, nor the additional legal fees on Charter's side to get everything ready for sale.

And they do all this to reach an audience of some 250,000 gun owners...

Thank you, Nick, for taking time to chat with me about the onerous process your company has endured to be allowed to sell firearms to MA gun owners. We appreciate your willingness to roll the dice and see if the AG will allow the guns you've submitted to be sold - Glock submitted a bunch, as did Kahr, which made the Approved Firearms Roster {spit} yet are still not sold to MA gunnies. They spent all that money for nothing, and you could have found yourself in the same boat.

Oh, and if you happen to have a model or two available for a little T&E, I might be able to fit that into my schedule...

That is all.

7 comments:

Weer'd Beard said...

Great post, Jay. I must say my opinion of Charter arms was greatly improved by speaking with Mr. Ecker and his lovely daughter.

I may have to make it a point to add one of their revolvers to my collection.

Heath J said...

It's a fine thing to do, and I give them credit.

It's also a damned shame they make the Hi-Point of revolvers..

Michael in CT said...

I've had an opportunity to deal with Nick Ecker as well, way back when I had to write some paper in college, something to do with where CT gun makers got the raw materials. He was kind and gracious enought to take time out of his day to talk to a 20 odd year old college student for about 15-20 minutes. He is definitely a class act.

FrankC said...

I can understand the 10lb trigger test - kiddies etc., and the drop test.
I can even understand the need to stamp the serial number (grind it flat and it's still readable by some sort of forensic doodad).
But to require a total retest because the maker offers a different finish! That's got to be just a money maker for the state.

Unknown said...

Still a nicer process than submitting something to BATFE FTB. They've cost an 07/SOT friend of mine a half million dollars getting an upper approved and they send your submitted items back destroyed as often as not.

That said, Charter Arms have always been nice people. Some manufacturers act like they hate their customers, some have gone back and forth, but going back to when Charter Arms first showed up on my radar, way back when I bought an AR-7, they've been nice to everybody and plodded along making reliable products and treating their dealers and wholesalers well, along with their customers. Never heard a bad word spoken of them.

Anonymous said...

Jay being unfamiliar with your states law. Can Ma. gun owner have trigger work done to a approved firearm after legally possessing one? Specifically work that might take the trigger weight below 10 lbs.

Or is this against Ma law?

Jay G said...

Anon,

Having work done is fine and legal - in fact, there are several local business that make a tidy sum *just* fixing the HORRIBLE trigger on the MA-legal M&Ps...

The laws are NOT against *OWNING* one of these handguns. They're against an FFL *TRANSFERRING* one.

I own a Kel-Tec P3AT. It is not on any list, approved or otherwise. It's fine for me to own it. If a MA FFL were to transfer one to me out of state, or sell me a new one outright, they could face a $5,000 fine...