Sales of handguns, rifles and ammunition have surged in the last week, according to gun store owners around the nation who describe a wave of buyers concerned that an Obama administration will curtail their right to bear arms. “He’s a gun-snatcher,” said Jim Pruett, owner of Jim Pruett’s Guns and Ammo in northwest Houston, which was packed with shoppers on Thursday.“He wants to take our guns from us and create a socialist society policed by his own police force,” added Mr. Pruett, a former radio personality, of President-elect Barack Obama.

Mr. Pruett said that sales last Saturday, just before Election Day, ran about seven times higher than a typical good Saturday.

It also turns out that these increases in gun sales after democratic victories are in part incited by the self-intersted gun industry which candrive profits by smply provoking fear, even if unfounded.

What is clear is that every gun seller — not to mention every advocacy group for gun ownership that depends on dues-paying members — has an incentive to stoke the concern that can prompt a gun sale. Political uncertainty, gun dealers say, is great for business.

[MUST VIEW VIDEO!] Yet another public apology from Hampel spokespeople televised by 9&10 News.  Good for them.  The more I hear, the more I believe they are not simply trying to escape public embarrassment for their own views. Perhaps the boycott will end soon.  We will see what tomorrow brings.   I need another night to sleep on the concept of the combination of guns, lock and keysmith services and Nazi memorabilia.

“We have taken complaint calls from indignant customers, rightfully so… we do not condone the comments” [T]hey say their former employee didn’t have the right to speak freely when representing their business.

Political Mumbo Jumbo - Waaaaaaaaaa! That n****r’s gonna take our guns away!

Michigan Liberal - Well, now that was quick … TC style - what would diversity sensitivity training for stupid white trash assholes look like?  I mean, I knew this was coming, and I suspected it might come out of the “gun sales” industry.  It’s just that I would have expected the dateline to be “Jackson” or “Fowlerville” before “Traverse City.”

Racial slur sparks brings issue to the forefront - TV7-4

The store’s owner Tom Hampel, fired Nylan calling his actions a huge embarrassment and unacceptable

How can I embarrass a local racist?

The Third Reich was an anti-democratic dictatorship and fundamentally undemocratic.  It was a “superiority” based society which used scare tactics and moral certainty (i.e. no independent thought required) to justify any end (o.k. I am starting to get a chill down my spine over some similarities with the Rove era).  The fact that the owners  of hampels fired the racist gun-loving employee is commendable.  The fact that they are all over the local media trying to restore their reputations and good name tells me they at least care.  Even if they are racist too, at least they care about being perceived as such.  My guess is that Mr. Nyland is still trying to figure out what he did wrong. People like him don’t realize that most people are not racist.

So I appreciate that the Hambel clan at least care about being associated with Nylands comments and Nyland’s disrespect for our flag (no, Mr. Nyland, it is not ‘your’ country or ‘your’ flag, it belongs to the people collectively, like socialism).  But we are still left to wonder where it is financial preservation that is motivating the media blitz of apologies, or genuine disgust at the employee’s conduct and words.

I have to say.  I just don’t get this part of the unfolding story. I don’t know what it means.  But it definitely creeps me out. Here are some sample screen shots for those of you who are looking for some Nazi artifacts to place on your mantle (or do these items get put in the closet, only to be shown to certain people? I am so uneducated on Nazi collector etiquette).

…….Still scratching my head…….. Why the hell woudl someone want to own anything like Nazi motorcycle goggles or a Nazi Cross pin?  Somehow being an antique collector or historian -assuming that these are the type of people who buy this stuff - does not seem to cleanse the concept.

BY MELISSA DOMSIC
mdomsic@record-eagle.com
TRAVERSE CITY — Six-year-old Jayla Elsenheimer marched around the sidewalk, brandishing a copy of today’s Record-Eagle with “Shame on you” written in red marker across the story of a local gun shop employee who made racist remarks against President-elect Barack Obama.

Her mother, Angel Elsenheimer, stood beside her with a similar poster and an American flag.

They displayed their patriotism in front of Hampel’s Key and Lockshop on Randolph Street in Traverse City, where shop workers on Wednesday flew the American flag upside down in protest of Obama’s victory in Tuesday’s presidential election.

A Hampel’s employee, Rod Nyland, of Traverse City, was quoted in today’s paper calling Obama a “ n—–” when explaining the gunshop’s inverted flag stance.

Elsenheimer protested after “reading in the article in the paper today over breakfast with my family and trying to discuss with them exactly what was wrong with what happened … that something like this could happen in such a small, relatively close-knit community is disgusting.”

“It was a topic in a lot of the upper elementary classes today,” said Elsenheimer, who works at TCAPS Montessori school. “I think it’s a terrible, sad thing to not only see in the paper, but hear on the radio, and children don’t understand in a lot of cases. Trying to explain that kind of hate is sad and challenging.”

Hampel’s on Thursday reversed course and flew the flag correctly.

The Record-Eagle is reporting that the owner of Hampel’s gun shop fired the employee in question, Rod Nyland, as a result of Mr. Nyland’s racist comments about President Obama.

TRAVERSE CITY — Officials at a local gun and lock shop fired an employee for flying the American flag upside down as a political statement and using a racial slur to describe President-elect Barack Obama, they said.

Rod Nyland of Traverse City was fired Thursday from Hampel’s Inc. after about 25 years of employment there, and about a day after he referred to Obama as a n—–, said salesman Jack Fellows and locksmith Tom Hampel.

This decisive action takes a lot of heat off the gun shop, the other employees and its owner who issued a public apology as well. I won’t put too much stock in the actual words but ‘embarrassed’ seems to miss the mark.  I can’t answer the key question:  “Does it concern them that our President is black?  What do they feel when they see black people on TV crying and jumping ofr joy?  What comments have they made these lsat 12 months which might smack of racism?  Do they really think Obama is going to take away their guns?  He said he wouldn’t.  Do they support our new democratically elected President?  Do they use the “n” word in private?

Fellows and Hampel, son of owner Karl Hampel, spoke with the Record-Eagle today. They said they were embarrassed by the incident and wanted to publicly apologize.

“It’s a huge embarrassment for me and I take this personally. I’m a Hampel and I’m very embarrassed about this,” Hampel said.

They said Nyland raised the inverted flag on his own, without the knowledge of Karl Hampel.

Perhaps the Mapels will continue to speak out.  In teh meantime, we leave issues of intent and contrition to you the reader. This web site shall stand as a permanent reminder of the fact that we still have a long way to go before people judge eachother based on their character, rather than their religion, sex or skin color.

In short, this is not an anti-gun web site.  In fact, it is a web site which is founded on the belief that it is not criminals with guns which create risk of Second Amendment erosion.  The real threat is within the community itself, in people whose view of gun ownership is based in a belief that those guns are needed to protect themselves, or assert themselves, against democratic principles.  Racist people with guns are scary and give anti-gun interests more ammunition than the criminals who use them illegally.

“Guns don’t kill people; People kill people.”    Yes, let’s keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

But what about the hate filled people who believe that their guns are constitutionally protected to assert against democracy itself, or the outcome of an election?  What about the racists whose ‘hate-mongering’ tendencies lie just below the surface of their grip on the trigger?

I believe in the Second Amendment right to bear arms.  But I also believe that there are those in our community who give the rest a bad name.  Such is the case of employees at Hampel’s Key and Lockshop on Randolph Street in Traverse City, MI who flew an American flag upside down Wednesday in protest of Sen. Barack Obama’s victory in the presidential election.  Beyond the clear message that they he did not respect America for its choice, or the democratic principles upon which the outcome of this election- and every election - is based, one employee Rod Nyland is apparently clinging to his gun a little tighter because the President is, in his words, a “nigger.”

Mr. Nyland’s quote to the local paper, the Record Eagle in an article titled Local shop flies American flag upside down, should send a shiver down the spine of every Second Amendment advocate and, for that matter, the Republican party who has courted this segment as part of its base:

“(The inverted flag is) an international signal for distress and we feel our country is in distress because the n—– got in,” said Hampel’s employee Rod Nyland, of Traverse City.

This kind of overt racism by a right wing gun nut undermines the legitimacy of the ‘right to bear arms’ advocates.   Could you even imagine what was being discussed behind the counter of Hampel’s Gun Shop these last months?  If Mr. Nyland is willing to provide the above quote to a local newspaper, we can only guess what happened behind closed doors or with like-minded customers?

So, back to the purpose of this web site.  On behalf of at least one Second Amendment advocate who does believe in democracy, I say that responsible community members should boycott Hampel’s Key, Lock & Gunshop.  We need to send a clear message that Hampbel’s and its employees represent a small percentage of the Second Amendment advocate community and that many of us believe that a  right to bear arms has nothing to do with an election outcome you don’t agree with.  And it certainly is not based in racism.
So here is the company bio ..