Who is buying up all the gun manufacturing companies?? Not George Soros after all!

George Soros’ Gun Grab?

Posted on October 21, 2011





Q: Does George Soros own the company buying many firms that make guns and ammunition?
A: No. Contrary to a fanciful claim made in a viral email, the Freedom Group is not linked to the liberal billionaire. The National Rifle Association says the real owners are “strong supporters” of gun rights.

FULL QUESTION

Searched your archives and viral stories, couldn’t find. Is there any truth to this?


I googled “Cerberus capital management freedom group buying guns” and found many stories about this. Without lots of research, it looks like it is true!

For the last several years a company called “The Freedom Group” has been buying up American gun and ammunition manufacturers.

Some of these companies are:

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FULL ANSWER

The anonymous author of this chain letter asks why the media haven’t reported that George Soros is connected to a company that is buying a lot of other companies that make guns and ammunition. The answer to that question is simple: because it isn’t true.

Soros doesn’t own Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm founded in 1992 by Stephen Feinberg and William Richter. Both Feinberg and Richter currently serve as two of the firm’s senior managing directors. And Feinberg, also the firm’s chief executive officer, is an avid hunter.

Soros, a billionaire philanthropist and known supporter of Democratic causes, isn’t even one of the company’s 26 senior executives. But the firm’s senior executives do include former Republican Vice President Dan Quayle and former Republican Treasury Secretary John Snow.

It’s true, however, that Cerberus Capital Management owns Freedom Group, a leading company in the manufacturing and marketing of guns and ammunition. And it’s also true that in recent years Freedom Group has acquired many of the firearms and ammunition manufacturing companies mentioned in the email, including Bushmaster Firearms (in April 2006), Remington (in May 2007) and Marlin (in January 2008). But that’s about all the author of this latest viral message gets right.

It has even been taken apart online by none other than the National Rifle Association, the largest gun-rights lobbying organization in the United States. The NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action called the rumor “completely false and baseless.”


Finish here:

[link to www.factcheck.org]