Attention

The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not represent our advertisers

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

California Teachers Divest Pension Fund From Assault Weapons

After Sandy Hook, a bold collective move to take the union's money out of guns.

Immediately after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in December, managers for the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) began divesting from companies that make and sell assault weapons.

CalSTRS, the retirement system for more than 800,000 California teachers, is the nation’s second-largest public pension fund. It has about $750 million invested with the private equity company Cerberus Capital Management. Cerberus owns the Freedom Group, which makes the Bushmaster M4A3 semi-automatic rifle used at Sandy Hook. When media reports began drawing attention to the origins of that weapon, investment staff at CalSTRS decided the fund could not support the Freedom Group.

More

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good move dumb a$$ one of the only things making money in this economy.

lmclain said...

LOL! Watch their investment returns drop 2%. And, perhaps I read it wrong, but I though the boy did all that killing with two pistols. I thought he left the rifle in the car...so if he DID do that, he couldn't have "used" it in the slaughter, as the article states...

Anonymous said...

Cerberus also owns Chrysler which got bailout money.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Then the teachers will cry foul that the investment did not return...
hypocrites.

Anonymous said...

My stocks in gun manufacturing are doing quite well. Only a bunch of liberal idiots would make such a move.

Anonymous said...

Wow, something about a liberal group with some sort of selfless morality makes my head spin. But, as a relief, the sheer stupidity of the move away from the only companies in the world whose stocks went up 15O% since November brings me back to the faith on Liberal stupidity!

Anonymous said...

I admire them for sticking to principles and I'd rather see this type of action than some kind of legislative, knee-jerk solution.

Years ago I went to a college where the students encouraged the board to divest from holdings in South Africa. The college didn't suffer from its decision and helped (along with many other) to put pressure on South Africa to revoke apartheid.