Story
Gun Chief Undeterred In The Line Of Fire
By RINKER BUCK
The Hartford Courant
July 04, 2000
SPRINGFIELD - This may be just about the worst moment in history to be a firearms executive, and few can say that Ed Shultz has made it any easier on himself.
Three months ago, the chief executive of the venerable Smith & Wesson broke ranks with the rest of his industry to reach a sweeping agreement on gun control with the Clinton administration. In exchange for protection from more than 30 lawsuits filed by cities against the gun industry, Smith & Wesson agreed to stiff new measures mandating waiting periods before purchases of guns and other restrictions.
The agreement won Shultz the plaudits of editorial writers and state attorneys general across the country, but it also brought down on him a vitriolic barrage of condemnation from his own industry and product boycotts by angry gun owners. National Rifle Association President Charlton Heston has accused Smith & Wesson's British owners of not valuing "the right to bear arms as much as Americans," and NRA lobbyist James Jay Baker has called Shultz's agreement a "futile act of craven self interest."
Undeterred, Shultz continues to defend the agreement as a rational response to the sea change in attitudes toward gun control that has swept America since the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado last year.
"You can't just stick your head under a bucket and pretend that these issues are going to go away," Shultz said during an interview last week, a day during which he calmly fielded calls on the raft of lawsuits still facing Smith & Wesson and faced a deadline on deciding how many workers to furlough during a longer than normal company shutdown this summer. "I feel good when I wake in the morning because we have moved forward."
"Moving forward," in Shultz's case, has placed him in the ranks of suddenly prominent CEOs such as Warren Anderson of Union Carbide after the 1984 chemical leak at its Bhopal, India, plant, which killed more than 4,000 people, or Exxon chief executive Lawrence Rawl after the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska in 1989. Like them, Shultz was barely recognizable before the events that made him a personal lightning rod for the gun industry, his every move scrutinized by the media and Washington officials for its symbolic value on the gun-control debate.
In the process, the traditional alliances of the gun industry have been turned topsy-turvy.
"I have enemies that I didn't know I had that professed to be friends previously," Shultz said. "I have friends that I didn't know I had that professed to be enemies previously." Within days after the Smith & Wesson agreement was announced in March, Shultz was flooded with more than 200 e-mails a day, a few favorable to his company's position, but most condemning it. The e-mails have since trickled to just a few a day. But Shultz said that he has answered more than 3,000 e-mails and letters.
"I used to get this kind of criticism from people who said, `How can you sleep at night if you make guns?' " Shultz said. "Now it's just a different group of people who think that I should be sentenced to a life of some terrible punishment."
A smaller, "vulgar and radical" minority - the kind of citizens who have "gun racks on their pickup trucks" and who are fanatical about the Second Amendment right to bear arms, Shultz said - have made personal threats. He's received hangup calls in the middle of the night and threatening voicemails that can only be traced to a pay phone.
Security experts and law enforcement officials have encouraged Shultz to take the threats seriously and adopt steps to protect himself. Shultz is being cautious, but has vowed not to limit "the freedom I have to function as an individual."
"The security people say that my attitude on this borders on the cavalier." Shultz said. "I'm 58 years old. It's too late in my life to become paranoid about things that have been normal with me. When I was in my twenties and running a lawnmower factory, I had a strike. People threatened to burn my house down and kill my family. The threats now are not any different in the words."
The changes now facing Shultz and Smith & Wesson are typical of a company that has taken bold action in the face of unprecedented threats, management consultants say. Business leaders assuming responsibility for momentous decisions often wake up to find the environment facing their company radically changed.
"The first stage of change is a profound sense of loss," said Mary Ann Salerno, the co-founder of the consulting firm Interchange International Inc. of Washington, D.C.,which studies organizational change within large corporations. Salerno has followed the debate about Smith & Wesson since March, and has been impressed with Shultz's determination to adhere to his position in the face of a furious response from the gun lobby.
"Visionary leaders have a way of fueling themselves through enormous stress and storms," Salerno said. "They're so self-motivated that they can shut off criticism from the outside. Shultz's decision to reach this agreement was basically an easy business choice, but the emotionalism that comes afterward is often the hardest part to conquer."
Gun Chief Undeterred In The Line Of Fire
By RINKER BUCK
The Hartford Courant
July 04, 2000
SPRINGFIELD - This may be just about the worst moment in history to be a firearms executive, and few can say that Ed Shultz has made it any easier on himself.
Three months ago, the chief executive of the venerable Smith & Wesson broke ranks with the rest of his industry to reach a sweeping agreement on gun control with the Clinton administration. In exchange for protection from more than 30 lawsuits filed by cities against the gun industry, Smith & Wesson agreed to stiff new measures mandating waiting periods before purchases of guns and other restrictions.
The agreement won Shultz the plaudits of editorial writers and state attorneys general across the country, but it also brought down on him a vitriolic barrage of condemnation from his own industry and product boycotts by angry gun owners. National Rifle Association President Charlton Heston has accused Smith & Wesson's British owners of not valuing "the right to bear arms as much as Americans," and NRA lobbyist James Jay Baker has called Shultz's agreement a "futile act of craven self interest."
Undeterred, Shultz continues to defend the agreement as a rational response to the sea change in attitudes toward gun control that has swept America since the shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado last year.
"You can't just stick your head under a bucket and pretend that these issues are going to go away," Shultz said during an interview last week, a day during which he calmly fielded calls on the raft of lawsuits still facing Smith & Wesson and faced a deadline on deciding how many workers to furlough during a longer than normal company shutdown this summer. "I feel good when I wake in the morning because we have moved forward."
"Moving forward," in Shultz's case, has placed him in the ranks of suddenly prominent CEOs such as Warren Anderson of Union Carbide after the 1984 chemical leak at its Bhopal, India, plant, which killed more than 4,000 people, or Exxon chief executive Lawrence Rawl after the Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska in 1989. Like them, Shultz was barely recognizable before the events that made him a personal lightning rod for the gun industry, his every move scrutinized by the media and Washington officials for its symbolic value on the gun-control debate.
In the process, the traditional alliances of the gun industry have been turned topsy-turvy.
"I have enemies that I didn't know I had that professed to be friends previously," Shultz said. "I have friends that I didn't know I had that professed to be enemies previously." Within days after the Smith & Wesson agreement was announced in March, Shultz was flooded with more than 200 e-mails a day, a few favorable to his company's position, but most condemning it. The e-mails have since trickled to just a few a day. But Shultz said that he has answered more than 3,000 e-mails and letters.
"I used to get this kind of criticism from people who said, `How can you sleep at night if you make guns?' " Shultz said. "Now it's just a different group of people who think that I should be sentenced to a life of some terrible punishment."
A smaller, "vulgar and radical" minority - the kind of citizens who have "gun racks on their pickup trucks" and who are fanatical about the Second Amendment right to bear arms, Shultz said - have made personal threats. He's received hangup calls in the middle of the night and threatening voicemails that can only be traced to a pay phone.
Security experts and law enforcement officials have encouraged Shultz to take the threats seriously and adopt steps to protect himself. Shultz is being cautious, but has vowed not to limit "the freedom I have to function as an individual."
"The security people say that my attitude on this borders on the cavalier." Shultz said. "I'm 58 years old. It's too late in my life to become paranoid about things that have been normal with me. When I was in my twenties and running a lawnmower factory, I had a strike. People threatened to burn my house down and kill my family. The threats now are not any different in the words."
The changes now facing Shultz and Smith & Wesson are typical of a company that has taken bold action in the face of unprecedented threats, management consultants say. Business leaders assuming responsibility for momentous decisions often wake up to find the environment facing their company radically changed.
"The first stage of change is a profound sense of loss," said Mary Ann Salerno, the co-founder of the consulting firm Interchange International Inc. of Washington, D.C.,which studies organizational change within large corporations. Salerno has followed the debate about Smith & Wesson since March, and has been impressed with Shultz's determination to adhere to his position in the face of a furious response from the gun lobby.
"Visionary leaders have a way of fueling themselves through enormous stress and storms," Salerno said. "They're so self-motivated that they can shut off criticism from the outside. Shultz's decision to reach this agreement was basically an easy business choice, but the emotionalism that comes afterward is often the hardest part to conquer."
I told him that my boycott will continue unabated. Oh, and I also told him FWIW that the last firearm dollars that I spent, went to Glock!!! I'm so mad that I think that I will have to go and clean the gun rack on my pickup truck!!!