Double Naught Spy said:
Talk about shooting the messenger! MSNBC consulted various firearms experts and did not conduct their own tests. They reported numerous lawsuits lost by Rem and settlements paid by Rem because of the triggers. MSNBC isn't the problem with the rifle.
Given the number of court cases lost and latter suits Rem just settled out of court instead of choosing to fight (and usually lose), the problem is real.
Businesses settle meritless court cases all the time. It is a business decision based on the fact the settling generally costs less than defending themselves, even if they win. Lawyers and litigation is expensive.
The only "expert" they contacted is a professional plaintiff's witness for ambulance chasers. If you watch the Remington rebuttal to the CNBC piece, thy show the same expert state under oath that it was only a theory, and he had never been able to actually get it to happen. The "Remington Insider" they showed worked at an ammunition plant, and had nothing to do with firearms.
They show some video of some unknown dude in generic Camo with a black ball cap and blurred face with a clearly unsafe rifle, but no information on the condition of the rifle, what had been done to it, or what the Remington found when they inspected it, (which they probably didn't, because it was most likely not in the condition it left the factory).
Any nitwit with a jewelers screwdriver could probably make their gun do the same thing, that does not automatically make it Remington's fault.
Double Naught Spy said:
Note that the suits stem from injured and don't take into account all the non-injury incidents.
Even if the trigger really was defective, all of the injuries could have been avoided had the owners practiced basic firearms safety and gun handling.
Double Naught Spy said:
Can you otherwise document that MSNBC did wrong in the report or that anything that they reported was not actually true? Walker himself talked about problems with the trigger he designed that is at the crux of the problem. The court cases can be verified. So what in the report was fabricated as you imply?
The whole interview, all Walker really said was he advocated for a firing pin block on the safety, and Remington did not do it because of cost.
The Walker interview portion is here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iis8nxGl-hQ
CNBC said:
"his own memos, obtained by CNBC show he repeatedly raised concernes about the guns he designed"
Well, not exactly. They showed 3 memos from when he worked at Remington, all are posted online.
The first advocates adding a trigger block to the safety, and what that would involve, in the manufacturing process:
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/CNBC/Se...Remington_Under_Fire/Documents/Rem_Doc_09.pdf
They also say that the cost would be 5 1/2 cents per gun, which is certainly minimal, but unit cost and the cost of making the change are not the same thing. They do not mention tooling and setup costs, and depending on where they were in the design/manufacturing process, this could be a substantial setup cost.
I agree that a trigger block is a good thing to have on a safety, but that does not mean that a safety without a trigger block is unsafe.
The memo they show like it is some sort of smoking gun:
CNBC said:
As early as 1946, with the gun still in the testing stage, Walker writes about a theoretical unsafe condition involving the safety
The memo they show in the piece is
here.
Yeah, he did. Which HE FIXED. The last line of the memo says "this change will be incorporated in the drawing as soon as tool procurement is completed" Now why wouldn't they mention that?
The third they show in the "he repeatedly..." section isn't even from Walker, it is signed by a guy named Leek, and all it says is some parts were out of "out of design limits".
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/CNBC/Se...Remington_Under_Fire/Documents/Rem_Doc_03.pdf
It does not say the out of design parts were used, or what was done with the information.
Double Naught Spy said:
And NO, NBC did not put "explosive charges" in the trucks. Results were rigged with model rocket engines, not explosives.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dateline_NBC
Right, because rocket engines are a much more fair representation of an actual auto accident.
NBC has a record of playing pretty loose with the facts when it comes to firearms.
http://www.nraila.org/138269
I just assume at this point anything they say is BS.