Remember When Smith and Wesson was anti-gun?

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peggysue

Moderator
Remember in 2000 when Smith & Wesson announced that they had made a deal with the Devil... I mean the Clinton-Gore crowd, to give the government massive new gun control powers over, not only their own operations, but ALL of their dealers as well,
Now the same firearms everyone boycotted are in demand because they do not have a internal key lock.
Times have changes. Just an old person opining who live through it.. antone else remember?
 
And Bill Ruger was all for magazine bans.

And Troy hired anti 2A stooge Jody Weis.

The entire gun world is populated with people who make questionable decisions and it costs them business and cred.
 
I remember.

But I remember things a little bit differently than you do, judging from the title of the thread.

As I remember it, S&W was never anti-gun. The British holding company (Thompkins LLC) (IIRC;)) that owned S&W at that time, made the deal with the Clinton administration.

I never heard a word anywhere about the people at S&W having any say in the matter. Or, if they did, the owners didn't listen.

A lot of the S&W buying public resented the decision, sales plummeted, S&W stock tanked, and the Brits wound up selling S&W for a new loss.

Once those actually responsible for the agreement with the Clintons no longer owned S&W, things began to return to a more normal state. Although, it seems that there are still some die hard's out there who continue to blame S&W for something that they didn't do.

The Bill Ruger thing has also been blown out of proportion. I've read the original letter that started the mess, and yes, Ruger said some foolish things, considering how they were taken, by both sides of the issue.

As far as I can tell, Ruger never said he was in favor of a magazine size restriction. What he said was (essentially) that IF you were going to have a magazine size limit, 10 rnds was where he thought the limit ought to be. He was, clumsily, trying to limit the damage the proposed ban might do to his company (Ruger, at that time, didn't sell mags over 10rnds for their rifles). What I got as the message he was trying to get across was "if you are going to do something stupid like this, this is the least stupid way to do it"

Certainly it would have been better for us all if he had used these words, or something close to them. But he didn't. (possibly because if he had, the people he was trying to reach (politicians) would have "tuned him out". Can't say for sure, but I think so.)

BUT, what his words got turned into in the press, including the pro gun press was that "Ruger calls for 10rnd mag limit" and there was virtually no mention of anything else.
 
If I was informed correctly at the time, the Clinton administration made a lot of threats against the owners of S&W to force them into that agreement, including using the FBI to close the factory as a "public nuisance". "Close them down; if they sue, we will tell the courts what to do" was the attitude. They could have picked another company, but the British owners of S&W were seen as being more receptive to gun control in general and in a weaker position legally than other companies, and it was thought that if S&W gave in the others would fall in line.

Jim
 
In the 1990's, there was a slew of lawsuits against gun manufacturers to hold them responsible for criminal misuse of their products. It was somewhat unprecedented. If someone buys a Ford Explorer, drinks a bottle of bourbon, and runs me over, it's not Ford's fault. I wasn't harmed through a defect in Ford's product, and it's common knowledge that driving under the influence is dangerous and illegal.

Yet that was the logic behind suing gun manufacturers. The Clinton administration tacitly supported those lawsuits. This was a problem for Tomkins, who'd recently watched their share of the law-enforcement market go to Glock. They weren't really happy with their investment, and the lawsuits worried them.

The Clinton agreement was an escape hatch for Tomkins, and they took it. That ended up being a terrible move. Saf-T-Hammer offered to buy the company, and Tomkins gleefully divested themselves of what they had come to see as a huge liability.

Saf-T-Hammer made it clear they had no interest in honoring the agreement. In an ironic turn, Housing & Urban Development (HUD) had been placed in charge of administering it, and they showed no interest in pursuing the matter.

By 2005, Congress passed the PLCA, which made the lawsuits a moot point.

Interesting side note: remember last year's "universal background check" bill? Remember all the shouting about how it explicitly forbade a registry? Check again. It forbade the Department of Justice from creating a registry. Nothing would have prevented the administration from assigning another agency (like HUD) from doing so.
 
' Although, it seems that there are still some die hard's out there who continue to blame S&W for something that they didn't do.'

I hold it against Smith & Wesson's new owners for what they didn't do upon purchase of the company...

Repudiate, in no uncertain terms, the agreement.

What people don't realize is that the agreement is still in effect. It's never been rescinded by the goverment or the courts, and as the wording in the agrement said, "The Agreement will be entered into and enforceable as a court order and as a contract."

Court orders don't expire unless voided by the courts. Contracts remain in force unless terminated specifically by agreement of the parties.

The agreement was the Clinton Administration's plan to get by stick and carrot what it couldn't get through Congress.

The administration was in "negotiations" with a number of manufacturers, including Remington and Glock, and S&W was the first company to fold. Fortunately, it was the only company to fold.

The carrot part of the agreement was the administration's promise to give S&W preferential treatment on government contracts.

That carrot was quickly nullified by Congress, leaving the company with nothing for its efforts but scorn, emnity, and a boycott that almost brought it down.

Glock, Remington, and the other companies "offered" the agreement all told the administration to go to hell.
 
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Also according to what we heard at the time, the Clinton's approach was both carrot and stick.

The carrot was both promised immunity from the lawsuits, and preferential treatment on future purchasing contract. The stick was the threats and the lawsuits.

Interestingly enough, while the Clintons could have (probably) gotten S&W immunity from the lawsuits, preferential treatment for purchase contracts would have clearly been against several existing laws. Which doesn't mean they Clinton's wouldn't have done it, or tried, it just means that they were promising something that they could not legally deliver. Not that something like that ever stopped a dedicated politician from promising it....

Just sayin...
;)
 
"Now the same firearms everyone boycotted are in demand because they do not have a internal key lock."

Not with me.

I have 15 S&W handguns.

Not one of them was made post 1999.

And none of them ever will be.
 
I remember it very well. I was furious a the time and I don't own any S&W revolvers made after 1999 either. I was very pleased with the other companies standing up to Clinton.
 
The "new" owners don't have to repudiate everything explicitly. They simply need to get rid of that lock or at least re-design it so that it is not so ugly. The one thing Taurus does better. :D

I do have to admit to owning a couple of post-lock revolvers. :o
 
Just to job folks memories, both Colt and Taurus were ready to jump on the 'smart' gun bandwagon. No one is perfect.

Need we review so-called gun friendly politicians from the gun friendly that were all for various bans and restrictions?

As far as buying new SWs - sure, if they have a product that suits my needs.
 
A firearms designer who believes in limited magazine capacity=anti-gun.

The logic there astounds me.
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What is astounding, MM?

Bill Ruger basicly said: The guns I make are OK. The Government should ban those guns, because they are eeeeeeeeeeeeevil.

It validates the argument that inaimate objects are the problem. What's the differece between Bill Ruger's 10 round limit and the NY SAFE Act's 10 round limit? .... The idea that this gun is bad and that one good..... following that line of logic, eventually you'd be left with single shots, because those are definitely "better" for "honest men" than those that are more like those evil "assault weapons" .... it is the camel's nose under the tent.
 
Just to job folks memories, both Colt and Taurus were ready to jump on the 'smart' gun bandwagon. No one is perfect.
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And let's not forget that Donald Zilkha was donating money to Charles Schumer's campaign while he was in charge of Colt.
 
S&W was British owned at the time IIRC.

It is easy to be critical of Bill Ruger, but a lot is taken out of context. Yes, he did push for a 10 round mag limit, but as Paul Harvey used to say, "Here is the rest of the story."

A mag limit was coming, it was going to happen, and most of the politicians were pushing hard for a 5-7 round limit. Ruger was the main force in getting the limit changed to 10, instead of the 5 that was being proposed. So yes, he was the main reason we had a 10 round limit for 10 years. We should thank him for that.
 
Supposedly this is what Bill Ruger had proposed:

"The best way to address the firepower concern is therefore not to try to outlaw or license many millions of older and perfectly legitimate firearms (which would be a licensing effort of staggering proportions) but to prohibit the possession of high capacity magazines. By a simple, complete and unequivocal ban on large capacity magazines, all the difficulty of defining 'assault rifle' and 'semi-automatic rifles' is eliminated. The large capacity magazine itself, separate or attached to the firearm, becomes the prohibited item. A single amendment to Federal firearms laws could effectively implement these objectives."

Granted I found the above on Wikipedia, so don't know how much water it holds.

Sounds to me like he didn't want any firearms banned but instead wanted to make all firearms legal by banning large magazines. I think it was a compromise to try to keep firearms from being banned, or am I reading it wrong?
 
No, can't say I remember S&W ever being 'Antigun'.
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"Those who do not know History are doomed to repeat it."

The years of the Clinton Adminitration were dark times for the gun industry and the 2nd Amendment.
 
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