How S&W sold out gun owners

Here is the agreement and S&*'sattempt to justify it.
www.smith-wesson.com/misc/agreement1.html

From the clarification of the agreement:

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR> d. Make no sales at gun shows unless all sales by any seller at the gun show are conducted only upon completion
of a background check.

* This applies only to Smith & Wesson product and does not apply to private sales. [/quote]

Say what?!?!? I read thigs a bit differently in American English than Tompkins does in the British version I guess. The way I read this, and a bunch of others also, is that S&* says if you are a dealer of S&*, You sell NOTHING at a show where ANYONE,private seller or not, sells without a background check. Don't even try to justify these sellouts to me please. Yeah, they were the oldest and one of the biggest, even more reason for them to fight this sham. It's a bit corny, but I'm reminded of the battle scene in Braveheart where Wallace expects the Nobels to join in, then watches them ride the other way. S&* can screw off, and so can their British masters. As far as I am concerned, S&*'s website pretty much explains it. Guns are just one part of their business. Visit their website and check out what else S&* offers. They also make chains(cufffs).
 
First shooters wanted to boycott Ruger because it stopped offering high capacity magazines to the public. Remington and Winchester never sold high capacity magazines to the public. Should we boycott them ? Then shooters wanted to boycott Colt because it dropped some of its unprofitable product lines. Browning dropped the A-5 shotgun and the Highpower. Should we boycott Browning ? Now shooters want to boycott S&W because it entered into a settlement to avoid bankruptcy. Because of the settlement, S&W can CONTINUE TO SELL HANDGUNS TO THE PUBLIC. Now shooters want to do what the govt. couldn't, and drive S&W out of business ? I don't get it. You think companies from Brazil, Germany and Austria are good long term bets for protecting your 2nd amendment rights ? The govt. could shut down importation of those companies gun products any time it wants, like it did to Norinco.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by San Francisquito Bill:

We have now given a great weapon to the anti's. [/quote]

Exactly!!! We have become Sarah Brady's errand boys...

Joe



------------------
Go NRA
 
Bankruptcy avoidance? The agreement has no bearing on the pending litigation against Smith. The federal government can't (so far) dictate to states and cities concerning their suits against Smith. The federal government cannot purchase from Smith without competitive bids; so no change there. The federal government cannot dictate the State, County and City purchasing.

The agreement appears unique in that it requires Smith to stipulate what it's independant dealers stock in relation to their products from other manufacturers, and how they conduct their business.

I read this as a fairly easy move on the part of S&W as they are a small, marginally profitable, part of a major foreign company. By getting S&W to agree, the rest of the industry was to fall in line to agree to the same terms.

Between the refusal of other manufacturers to go along with this blackmail and the customer resistance it looks like the federal government has failed in its purpose; for the moment.

If all manufacturers were to sign on to this agreement, we would soon loose the capacity to obtain truly defensive weapons of any kind.

This is not about money, it is about Politics and gun control.

Sam...overheard in store.."I'm not a hypocrite, I'm a Democrat"
 
A corporation's first legal and moral duty is to its stockholders. Who are the stockholders of a corporation? They are everyone who holds a mutual fund, an IRA, or a 401K. Its everyone who works for their living and hopes to be able to retire. S&W is no different. If you don't like strongman tactics and government control over every aspect of your existence, then control your government. Quit being divided and conquered by turning on those who are in the same boat you are.

I'm sick of people disparaging corporations with statements about 'greed.' Since when was it greedy to want the money you earned in voluntary exchange with willing participants? I find it interesting that it is usually the same people who sneer about corporate greed and yet, have nothing to say against the greed of those who take money from those who have earned it, at gunpoint. They never cease to complain about 'greedy' corporations that offer a product to those who purchase it, if they wish to purchase it. Yet these same people rarely complain when the government takes 25 to 50 % of their income via the threat of imprisonment.
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by arnie:
First shooters wanted to boycott Ruger because it stopped offering high capacity magazines to the public. [/quote]

Nope. You missed the point entirely. It wasn't that Ruger stopped offering high capacity magazines to the public. It was that Bill Ruger lobbied Congress to impose a magazine capacity restriction. He chose 15 rounds. Just coincidentally, the Ruger P89 had a 15 round capacity. And it was getting clobbered in the police market by the 17 round Glock 17.

Here's what Neal Knox wrote about what Ruger did:

This was written by Neal Knox. It appeared in the 12/1/89 issue of The New Gun Week.


Knox Replies To Comment From Ruger Counsel's
Gun Week, December 1, 1989

The following reply to Stephen Sanetti's letter from Neal Knox of the Firearms Coalition was received by FAX.

"Steve Sanetti says 'I know better' than to ascribe Bill Ruger's magazine ban proposal to business considerations. Maybe so; I don't think Bill is by any means 'anti-gun,' nor do I think he really _wants_ a ban on either guns or magazines (after all, he got his start as a machine gun designer). But I do think Bill Ruger is pushing a plan that would protect his business while affecting only his competitors, and I think he's damaging the efforts of those of us attempting to stop all proposed bans. Further, I don't think his actions on this issue, and other issues in
the past, allows him to be described as 'the strongest supporter of our Constitutional right to keep and bear arms.'

"What I _know_ is that about 9 p.m. the night before Bill sent a letter to certain members of Congress calling for a ban on high-capacity magazines he called me, wanting me to push such a ban. His opening words,
after citing the many federal, state and local bills to ban detachable magazine semi-autos, were 'I want to save our little gun' -- which he later defined as the Mini-14 and the Mini-30. I'm not ascribing Bill's
motives as 'expedient from a business standpoint;' Bill did.

"While I agree that a ban on over-15 magazines would be 'indefinitely [sic]
preferable' to a ban on the guns that use them, that's not the question. Neither I, nor the other gun groups have ever believed that we were faced with such an either/or choice. Early last year the NRA legislative
Policy committee discussed various alternatives to the proposed 'assault weapons' ban, and wisely decided that magazine restrictions wouldn't satisfy our foes, but would make it more difficult to stop a gun ban.

"I was particularly shocked when I realized Bill was talking about a ban on possession of over-15-round magazines, rather than a ban on
sales (which is bad enough). I told him that such a law would make me a felon, for not only did I have standard over-15 magazines for my Glock pistol (a high-capacity which has sharply cut into Ruger's police business), I have many high-cap mags for guns I don't even own, and don't even know where they all are. As I told Bill, after a lifetime of accumulating miscellaneous gun parts and accessories, there's no way I
could clean out all my old parts drawers and boxes, then swear -- subject to a five or ten-year Federal prison term -- that I absolutely didn't have a M3 grease gun mag or 30-round M-2 magazine lying in some forgotten
drawer.

"Bill said (and all these direct quotes are approximate), 'No, there'd be amnesty for people like you. We have to propose a ban on possession before they could take us seriously.' He contended that the public's
problem was with 'firepower,' which could be resolved by eliminating high capacity mags.

"I told him Metzenbaum and Co. would gladly use whatever he offered, but they weren't about to willingly agree to eliminate high-cap magazines as a substitute for banning guns; that their intention isn't to eliminate 'firepower' but 'firearms.'

"Bill finally said, 'Neal, you're being very negative about it.' He got angry, then said 'Well somebody's got to do it; by God I will.' And the next day he sent his letter to the Hill; the evidence indicates a few weeks later he talked SAAMI into supporting undefined 'regulation' of magazines over-15-rounds -- a vote that might have gone a little differently if any produced high-capacity magazines as standard for
either rifles or pistols.

"I suspect that Ruger and SAAMI's actions are responsible, directly or indirectly, for the Bush Administration's proposal to ban high-cap mags, but that proposal has been ignored -- except as evidence that 'the Bush Administration and the American firearms industry recognize there's a problem -- that Americans shouldn't be allowed to have such guns.'

"Of course, that isn't what Bill Ruger and SAAMI are saying, but that's the message they're sending. Perhaps it isn't business expediency to propose banning only that which they don't make, in an effort to protect what they do make; but it sure can't be claimed to be in defense of the Second Amendment."
 
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