FYI, the lock is 30 years old.
So?? a 30 year old insult is no less offensive because it is still being used 30 years later.
The Hole is tiny. I don't know why anyone would say it's unattractive.
If you honestly don't know why, you need to do some research...
I really don't like the lock. Mainly because it doesn't look good and, more importantly, just useless junk which can break and cause a malfunction.
30 years old. How many breaks have there been online? like 4?
During the first few years after the lock was put in, people watched pretty closely, and there were a handful of verified instances of the lock "self activating". About 5, nation wide. Since then, nothing reported that I know of. Mechanically, the S&W lock has not proven to be a concern.
Lets be clear about this, for me (and a lot of other people) its not about the lock as an idea (one I happen to disagree with), nor is it about the idea that a lock could malfunction (which has proven to be a non-issue), its about GUN CONTROL, and the S&W lock being a constant "in your face" reminder.
The Clinton administration came up with a gun control package that included the lock, and a LOT of other things as well, including severe restrictions on sales outlets and practices. Also at this time there was a lot of noise from the Mayors of major US cities, about how they were going to sue gunmakers for the "cost of gun violence" in their cities.
The Clintons offered gunmakers a deal. They told gunmakers that if they would accept the administration's package, they would be exempted from being sued. This was a LIE, it was not something within the legal authority of the Clinton's to promise. Most Americans recognized this....
Out of all the people making guns in the US, the
only one to accept the Clinton deal was S&W. And, to be fair, it wasn't exactly S&W, it was the people who
owned S&W that accepted the deal, a British holding company Thompkins LTD.
The location of the lock, the change done to the look of the gun (particularly the change to the cylinder latch) was seen as a slap in the face to a significant segment of S&Ws customer base. Forget all the red herring arguments about safety, they're BS. The lock got put in to appease gun control advocates, in the belief that would CYA S&W.
NO other company did that. Or, more precisely, did it the way S&W did. Ruger put a lock in some of their models, on their own, without accepting the Clinton "deal" and all the BS that went with that. Ruger put their lock in an unobtrusive location. Somewhere it was out of sight and out of mind, if that's what the owner desired. (and, we did desire that) Another company (Taurus?) also put in a lock, and also in a not so obvious spot, again, without signing on to the Clinton "deal"
But S&W put it "right in your face" and by doing that, S&W was seen as "selling out to the Clintons" (and gun control in general).
There was a boycott. Lots of people stopped buying S&Ws, and even more refused (and to this day still do refuse) to buy one of the S&Ws with that lock in it.
S&W lost sales. Their stock "tanked". They lost MONEY, and they knew why.
The British owners sold S&W for a multimillion dollar LOSS.
The irony of the situation was that the group that came up with the money to buy S&W included the people who invented the S&W lock to begin with, and since they thought it a swell idea, they kept it, and (some) S&Ws still have it today. ALL they kept from the Clinton deal was the lock, none of the other parts of the deal were kept, and that "deal", never being law of any kind, disappeared with the end of the Clinton administration.
And the "big stick" the Clintons tried to use, the threat of endless lawsuits from the nations mayors? Never happened, either.
IIRC, Congress passed a law preventing that. Something about "Lawful commerce in firearms"....
So, for those of us who lived through those time, its not just a hole in a S&W its a reminder of govt overreach, gun control, shady deals, and one you cannot help but see every time you see the left side of the gun.
30+ years down the road doesn't change history one bit. It just means there's another generation of buyers who don't know WHY it's an insult. TO them, its "always been there" so its normal, right, and proper.
but, really, it isn't any of those....and some of us
remember...