I have a couple thousand dollars worth of Swazi in my closet. It is warm, quiet, windproof and waterproof in the garmets that are supposed to work that way. He makes a variety of clothing for a lot of cold wet weather.
Davy is a small business owner, in the world stage he is a tiny speck of a company in the garment world.
He also lives in a almost totally unarmed society. Aside from hunters, bad guys and police no one really has firearms. The mass public lost fireams ownership without a valid reason (hunting license, military career, sport shooting) years ago. Gun ownership and crime are both very low. Other than the Swiss, Americans are unique in the world on firearms ownership. You should judge another nation based on what is right for that nation.
I have lived all over the world, Europe, Australia and Asia and firearms ownership at our American level doesn't really exist.
Gun crime is common in 3rd world countries, but not in places like New Zealand.
In the mind of most New Zealanders, there is zero need for a firearm fore self protection. There are not bears, or tigers, or anything else roaming the countryside. The only problem animals are those humans lowlifes that exist in every society.
He is also one of the largest garment companies in New Zealand, and most Kiwis own clothing made by him. His fleece pull over and poley shorts are a classic Kiwi male uniform year round. Davy has NZ defense, search and rescue, and police garment contracts as well as being the primary uniform for construction workers, trades personnel and farmers. Everyone in New Zealand knows his product lines and wears it.
He is a loudmouth andwell known by most Kiwis. So of course he was going to speak on the subject.
In my mind he had a decision to make.
1. Support the ban, knowing that the number of Kiwis that owned semi-autos was low.
2. Fight the ban and lose a huge part of his business, maybe even be snuffed out of his government contracts all together.
He is smart enough to know that New Zealand is going to shut down sem-auto firearms the same way Australia did. So why would he lose his entire company for standing in the way of a ban. A ban that most Kiwis approve of.
If you have not lived outside the USA or you live in a totally red state, you may not know that the numbers are against the polite society of firearms owners. Australians, Kiwis and Europeans allow hunters to manage wildlife, and own firearms to make it work.
We are lucky in the USA we don't live in that kind of society.
But let's be really honest, they don't deal with our murder rates. We are 89th in the world with 5.3 murders per 100,000 per year. New Zealand is 199th with .7 murders per 100,000. Yellowstone National Park averages more murders than New Zealand.
Davy is just doing what is right for New Zealand and his business model.
How many of you are wearing jeans produced by some anti-gun company? Like Wrangler or Levis?
I shop at Costco, and occasionally buy shoes for my kids at Dicks. Both of them are anti-gun.
I don't have time or the patience in my life to completely ignore a company based on their politics. If you do then that is awesome, more power to you. When I was younger and more idealistic it was a lot easier. Now I have a job and kids to feed.
What Davy did isn't ideal, but he wasn't going to sink with the ship. I would judge him that way.
World is pretty big, most of you have never even seen his gear in action. Or known someone that owns it.
