Environmental Enforcement gets heavy with guitars

Musicians in Fear...? Indeed! YIKES!

I'm a certified life-long commie pinko tree-hugger, but having to worry about losing one of my guitars at a border crossing or customs check SUCKS--BIG TIME!

--GDub

Unfortunately too much in this country is run by lawyers and/or bean counters without any common sense, compassion, or reason. And we all suffer from it ... Except for them of course. They'll make sure they'll make out like bandits

- Jos

Great. I'm heading to Hawaii tomorrow and planned on bringing three guitars, one is almost entirely Brazillian rosewood and another acoustic with an ebony bridge & black walnut fretboard and 5 piece neck made of God knows what!(my Ovation/Adamus). I'm screwed. Thanks Dub; now I'm going to see if I can ship these UPS and avoid the anal probe... Will

Wow, I guess if your guitar is made of non-sustainable wood the terrorists win...

Seriously though I can see them seizing pallets of wood from factories but once it is made into a guitar I think it would be pointless to seize the guitar.

Seriously though I can see them seizing pallets of wood from factories but once it is made into a guitar I think it would be pointless to seize the guitar.

I agree. This is completely ridiculous. How can the end consumer know that the wood in the guitar was sourced from an approved source? To include that sort of information with every guitar built each year would be a logistical nightmare. Next they'll be confiscating things transported on trucks that exceed emission targets or t-shirts made with cotton picked on farms that used slave labour in the 1700s.

Yep , there's noway in He*l the end user is liable for anything here. In fact if something draconian came down, which it may do, there is no way it could be enforced on goods already owned. It would be impossible.
On the other hand, ebony fretboards would be like unobtainium...

BW

Hopefully these agents and/or lawyers don't learn how nice G&L guitars are.
I wonder whose home these confiscated guitars will end up at.

To include that sort of information with every guitar built each year would be a logistical nightmare.

Guess that's where G&L spec sheet may come in. I can foresee the necessity to include information like this: 'Fretboard: Pau Ferro, bought from Luthier Mercantile International, who in turn bought it Bolivian exporter so and so who in turn harvested it in sustainable fashion from a tree located -16.707479º latitude, -66.520414º longitude'.

Frickin' ridiculous

- Jos

Made it. UPS'd two guitars(arriving on Wed), and carried-on an Ovation/Adamus acoustic. Besides scanning it and taking a quick look, no question about woods. They liked it, though... Still the stress level was way up there for me and I'm glad I didn't grab a few drinks in the airport. BTW, I'm using the Virgin Mobile Wifi card thingy and it works like a charm...


Cheers,

Will

well, we can get hysterical and fantasize about the green gestapo kicking our front doors down and dragging out our guitars.....or we can read the law.

I spent a considerable amount of time reading up on the Lacey Act (all the way back to 1900 and its recent amendments in the Farm Bill, etc.) and you're not going to lose your guitars.

And I just saw this on CNN: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/201 ... ?hpt=hp_c2

Again, own a Gibson, don't worry about it. Or, if you want to worry and freak out, that's fine too

well, we can get hysterical and fantasize about the green gestapo kicking our front doors down and dragging out our guitars.....or we can read the law.

I'll reiterate, I'm a card carrying environmentalist. I have ZERO problem with emission standards with finishes, regulation prohibiting endangered trees from being mined for guitar bodies and fretboards, whatever. But, about the legacy instruments... I've dealt with the legal bureaucracy and, law on your side or not, the amount of money it costs to clear up a legal "misunderstanding" can be VERY economically unfriendly. So, I'd err on the safe side. Just saying.

--GDub

hey guys, here's some more good info:

http://www.fretboardjournal.com/podcast ... itars-raid

with a law professor. do check it out.

and then check this out:

http://www.fretboardjournal.com/blog/af ... ibson-raid

But hear the podcast first

I doubt that they take away anyone's music instruments. So if the New York Philharmonic decides to play in another city, some violins will be taken? I doubt.

It's the power of music and love that prevails. The spirit of Beethoven and karma keeps the music alive. Great music never dies and the fire still burns.

Yeah, you're guitars are in no danger. (Listen to the podcast from Fretboard Journal). Gibson made a stupid move (for a corporation) by trying to spin this with a Tea Party/Libertarian slant to scare the hell out of the guitar-owning masses. If Gibson is going to survive and not dissolve into nothing it might seriously consider replacing their CEO with somebody who has a sense for business.

Yeah, you're guitars are in no danger. (Listen to the podcast from Fretboard Journal). Gibson made a stupid move (for a corporation) by trying to spin this with a Tea Party/Libertarian slant to scare the hell out of the guitar-owning masses. If Gibson is going to survive and not dissolve into nothing it might seriously consider replacing their CEO with somebody who has a sense for business.

Why Gibson Guitar was raided...

Especially take note of the Martin and Gruhn responses. CAUTION is advised! Just writing the whole thing off as a "Tea Party/Libertarian" scare tactic is ridiculous--and believe me, I'm am no friend of the Tea Party or the Libertarians.

For the individual instrument owner the problem is NOT with the law(s) per se, but the possibility of running into an overzealous enforcement official at a border crossing who has the power to confiscate. It's unlikely that a guitar would get confiscated, but s**t happens. Musicians who travel should know about this stuff, and that was my reason for the initial post.

BTW, I got the link to the NPR article from this Mudcat.org thread.

--GDub

I was referring specifically to the way the CEO of Gibson attempted to spin this. No rational business executive makes the kind of mistake he made.

Not defending the gov. one bit here (maybe they did over-react) but I'm just in awe of how a firm like Gibson can take a problem of the kind they have and spin it into a conspiracy theory. What next? UFOs? Did anyone actually see, read, hear HJ's interviews and press releases? The man is absolutely out of his mind. PR disaster.

It's as if they took their talking points right from Fox News and boy did they spin it off into Crazy Land.

Anyway, we can continue to live in fantasy land and imagine all the things that could happen to our guitars -- probably easier than just seeing things direct on for what they are.

Again, I would urge people to listen to the FJ podcast where the law professor spells the whole thing out. Can you lose a guitar at a border. Yes. Is it going to be mine, yours, or anybody you know. Not likely at all. Ironically, if you own a Gibson you might have more trouble than if you have a Martin because Gibson has no rational sn system to help you document the age of your guitar that contains Braz. RW.

Yeah, you're guitars are in no danger. (Listen to the podcast from Fretboard Journal). Gibson made a stupid move (for a corporation) by trying to spin this with a Tea Party/Libertarian slant to scare the hell out of the guitar-owning masses. If Gibson is going to survive and not dissolve into nothing it might seriously consider replacing their CEO with somebody who has a sense for business.

Why Gibson Guitar was raided...

Especially take note of the Martin and Gruhn responses. CAUTION is advised! Just writing the whole thing off as a "Tea Party/Libertarian" scare tactic is ridiculous--and believe me, I'm am no friend of the Tea Party or the Libertarians.

For the individual instrument owner the problem is NOT with the law(s) per se, but the possibility of running into an overzealous enforcement official at a border crossing who has the power to confiscate. It's unlikely that a guitar would get confiscated, but s**t happens. Musicians who travel should know about this stuff, and that was my reason for the initial post.

BTW, I got the link to the NPR article from this Mudcat.org thread.

--GDub

check it out:

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/soundcheck/2011/sep/14/

"You have Tea Party right wingers and lefty guitarists all coming together...." Que Glenn Beck. (11:00) Wow.

I know I'd be pretty upset if the G&L factory were raided
by anyone with automatic weapons.

I know I'd be pretty upset if the G&L factory were raided
by anyone with automatic weapons.

Automatic weapons would be pretty over the top, no doubt. As it turns out the agents that raided Gibson were armed with "customary service revolvers and bubble wrap" and not "automatic weapons."

Again, we can live in a fantasy world and repeat things conjured up by crackpots or we can stick to reality.

Watch out they have bubble wrap!

Great to see so much information on the subject from all angles.

As a Canadian I have enough worries about crossing the US border its good to know having a stringed instrument with me won't be one of them, that is if I am reading your arguments correctly.

Looks like the cat is out of the bag finally! The real reason Gibson was raided:



I fear I've dated myself

check it out:

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/soundcheck/2011/sep/14/

"You have Tea Party right wingers and lefty guitarists all coming together...." Que Glenn Beck. (11:00) Wow.

ieso, you really need to have the last word on this. OK. The implication of that quote, however, really ticks me off, but hey... I'll make no more comments on the issue because, as those who know me from the good old days at the G&LDP, when I turn up the heat someone's going to get burned or banned--whichever comes first.

So there you go. Hey everyone, ieso has it all figured out for you. Case closed.

--GDub

:alright:

"Infinite Ego" makes perfect sense.

--GDub

:alright:

"Infinite Ego" makes perfect sense.

--GDub

Unlike this thread you started. Step one: claim to be the opposite of what you're about to become. Step two: start making gross exaggerations and unsubstantiated claims (begin with the title of the thread which is so wide of the mark). Step three: create a situation for the proliferation of confusion and fear.

Musicians in Fear...? Indeed! YIKES!

Step four: stick to your beliefs and fantasies no matter how flimsy they are; avoid facts. Step five: when the magnitude of your fail becomes evident get snippy.

I'll make no more comments on the issue because, as those who know me from the good old days at the G&LDP, when I turn up the heat someone's going to get burned or banned

Hey, recognizing you have a problem is the first step in solving it. Congrats.

So there you go. Hey everyone, ieso has it all figured out for you. Case closed.

Well, I may not have gotten all figured out "for you" but listening to me and checking out the info I directed you to (which you obviously didn't check out because it may interfere with your desire to simply believe whatever you already believed) would have been preferable to the reactionary, knee-jerk, fact-impoverished, paranoia that this thread was starting to display.

Am I a fan of the government? Not by a long shot. But one thing this incident at Gibson has revealed very well is the disconnect between the fragile "progressive" attitudes espoused on a routine basis by musicians and the underlying "regressive" personality structures of many of them that makes actual "progress" virtually impossible in an ambiguous world.

Man, this thread already got to the "terrorists win" stage in less than 5 posts. Awesome

If nothing, this Gibson case is one of ambiguity and that's a great experimental setting to watch ideology and personality structure unfold with all its contradictions.

The Gibson problem was one of compliance at a local manufacturing level that was spun into a fantasy about politics at the universal level and Henry J. knew he could count on many musicians to freak out. He took his script right out of the Tea Party Fox News playbook and, bam, we're off to the races. When you think your some kind of progressive type but wake up in the morning with Glenn Beck by your side you should maybe pause for a minute and think some of this through.

Cheap shots on band names? "Infinite Ego" = "Infinity, Go" (I know, it's not obvious). G Dub, I think you dropped your "m" somewhere -- I'll keep an eye out for it.

I actually have a more pessimistic view of American politics and the state than most but on this Gibson thing way too many people got taken for a ride by falling victim to the oldest tricks in the propaganda textbook.

http://www.propagandacritic.com/articles/index.html

I'll leave it at this: at least we can all sleep well at night knowing that G&L does not make their guitars out of Brazilian rosewood, ivory, or real tortoise shell. Thanks, G/L

And for anybody losing sleep over your guitars and your travel plans, please LISTEN to the podcasts and broadcasts from the law professor (links above) and you'll find good information. There are some cases where you may run into trouble when traveling out of the country if you have a guitar that is made out of Brazilian rosewood, ivory, or tortoise shell, but for the 99.9% of us, there is no problem. None. There is even discussion in that podcast that covers travel to Hawaii

Alas. I listened to the podcasts and read the articles and I think it's the non-Gibson part of the issue that's the problem, and that anyone who owns a vintage instrument should at least be aware when travelling. George Gruhn and the Martin rep said it best, "be cautious." Even the lawyer implied that it could happen with an individual instrument. IMHO, you seem to have a problem with Gibson and are skirting around the issue I've been trying to point out because of it. Go, cat go. Beat that Gibson horse.

OK. I'm done. I won't post another word to this thread, so the floor is all yours. Enjoy your last word. ;^)

--GDub

As a post scriptum:

I read in the newspaper today that Gibson settled the case associated with the raid at their factories with the Justice Department. They "... pay a $300,000 penalty, forfeit claims to about $262,000 worth of wood seized by federal agents and contribute $50,000 to the national Fish and Wildlife Foundation to promote the conservation of protected tree species." (source Associated Press)

- Jos

That is not a big deal for Gibson. They will sell more artist models to pay for that-- Darwin

just want to mention that it's ok to travel with guitar, just don't be an idiot and announce that it's brazilian rosewood. say it's indian, those custom guys don't know better. say it's pau ferro. it's the people who are not aware and say what it is that are screwed. btw, classical players have been aware of this issue for over 10 years. it's not new.

gibson was guilty as charged. i read quite a bit about this, including the entire warrant for the searches.

+1 on the wht lies!!