Better Dead than Red

When buying and selling are controlled by legislation,
the first things to be bought and sold are legislators 
--Parliament of Whores, P.J. O’Rourke 
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In Ranger's recent, "Man With the Golden Gun", we considered President Obama's love affair with skeet shooting.  But we ignored Obama's choice of weapon may be the most suggestive part of the picture -- a foreign-made over-and-under shotgun.

This foreign gun was bought and paid for with good American tax dollars. Meanwhile, Mr. Obama is cheerleading for the return of manufacturing jobs to America. How does one bemoan the loss of American jobs and petition for their return unless one is willing to walk one's talk?

Further, the United States government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on foreign-made firearms purchased for the use of Afghanistan, Iraq and god knows who else.  The president is now a bully pulpit kind of guy giving lip service to resurrecting U.S. industrial capacity, yet the presidential compound at Camp David buys foreign-made shotguns for our president's use.  This is insulting to American gun manufacturers, who create a fine product.

While we can't bang Obama for the foreign guns because we don't know when it was purchased or who owns it, but the point is valid: We should buy American products, especially if paid for by U.S. tax dollars. (As an aside, most U.S. presidents have chosen U.S.-made firearms as their personal weapons.)

The good news is that China does not have the expertise or machine tolerances to produce a fine over-and-under skeet shotgun. At least that, yeah?