Gibson Guitar Factories...Slashed

Now, when any guitar player who knows his guitars get the mentioning of "Gibson", the reaction you're most likely to see is melting of the face, followed by the collapsing of the body. Gibson is the iconic manufacturer of the perhaps more iconic Les Paul, a guitar revered by those not willing to break their life savings into a little (but REALLY heavy) guitar:

The stigma of the Les Paul is often associated with legendary guitar players such as Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin and Slash, of Guns n Roses.

 But, I digress.

From CNN: "On Aug. 24, armed agents from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service raided two of Gibson's Tennessee production facilities and its Nashville headquarters. The agents confiscated nearly $1 million in rare Indian ebony, finished guitars and electronic data, according to Juszkiewicz. It was the second time in two years that Gibson's factories have been raided by the feds over the rare woods it uses to build its guitars." (http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/02/smallbusiness/gibson_guitar/index.htm)


 The plain idea that our government would rather raid a Gibson factory, which provided all the legal documents for their materials, than work on something more pressing such as...well...creating jobs...for example, just doesn't click in my mind. Even if Gibson did violate the Lacey Act (following the foreign countries' law regarding exports of natural materials, in this case, wood), shows how our government would rather pursue trivial matter than to actually focus on the country's major issues.

Equally appaling is the idea that the federal government completely skipped over the part of negotiating with the company, and instead lept directly to seizure of materials. Unless their purpose was to sell said valuable materials (and that would be a LOW move), bringing a guitar player as myself to wonder...what are they going to DO with all that precious wood? More importantly, what will happen to all of those $3,000 guitars that were confiscated? Bashing a guitar is one thing; letting it sit there, unplayed, is almost as unacceptable.