December 2007

     I am pleased to announce that the home page of our website is getting a facelift, the results of which should be presented to you before the end of the month. I don't believe much else will change, but we thought it was about time to put a little lipstick on the lady.

     There are three threads which spawn from this topic. The first is a reminder to our community that North American Arms was the first firearms manufacturer to host an Internet Website. This was based on the initiative of an early Accounting/MIS Manager, George Miller, who was far more prescient than I (and most of the others in the industry). Our site may not be the best, but it was demonstrably the first. This spirit of innovation will be on display in 2008 as we introduce "new" technologies and groundbreaking process to the manufacture of our minis. When we are prepared to say anything further about this, we will.

     The second thread is to ask, if we aren't the best, why not? How can we make the site more helpful &/or easier to use? While we certainly don't have all the time, talent and/or resources to implement all the good suggestions I hope this invitation will prompt, we will certainly listen and use them when and as we can. Please address your remarks to Webmaster@NorthAmericanArms.com.

     The third thread, unfortunately, is to once again request reason, restraint, self-discipline, civility, etc. amongst those who are members of our Message Board community. Despite occasional requests to do so, we have neither the time nor interest in holding ourselves out as arbiters of fairness, good taste or good sense. I am entirely unwilling to "decide" who's right and who's wrong or who's good and who's bad. Some of those who complain the loudest are, not surprisingly, those against whom many of the complaints are lodged. Our community is, for the most part, educated, experienced, thoughtful and sober and it is clear to most when someone is out of line.

     This board has been managed as an unedited forum for discussion, presumably (but not exclusively) about NAA products. In an attempt to maintain its "legitimacy", we deliberately avoid editing of any kind, although we have removed profanity. You'll have seen that our products, our policies &/or our customer service, too, suffer the slings and arrows of some disgruntled individuals; sometimes the complaints are accurate and well-founded, often times they are not, yet we let the remarks stand as posted. You will almost never see me or anyone from the factory respond to any of them, except to occasionally correct a point of fact. I hasten to point out, however, that there's not a single comment or complaint that's been made directly to me which hasn't received a personal, generally timely reply; send your notes to Sandy@NorthAmericanArms.com - which is how you should communicate with me if you want to hear from me.

     I continue to suggest that the "offended" simply ignore the perceived slight. If you want to continue to fight, exchange email addresses and "take it outside" as the odds are very great that no one else cares or wants to be bothered by the noise - and if you are, for some reason, bothered - simply go to a different thread.