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The Price of Appeasement
By Tanya Metaksa
FrontPageMagazine.com | 10/24/00
URL: http://www.frontpagemag.com/archives/guest_column/metaksa10-24-00p.htm
THERE WERE PROBABLY high fives being given by Secretary of Housing and Urban Affairs (HUD) Andrew Cuomo as the latest information from Smith & Wesson (S&W) hit the news media. Cuomo, Clinton, and Gore must be very satisfied with their success at putting a once respected firearms manufacturer into financial crisis.
Of course, they didn’t do it without help from S&W former CEO, Ed Schultz. Yet, S&W’s compromise agreement with the Clinton-Gore administration isn’t the first time S&W has been more interested in “getting along” than fighting for principles.
The year was 1976 and the fight was a referendum on the ballot in Massachusetts. At issue was a statewide ban on handguns, which were defined as any firearm with a barrel length of 16 inches or less. It was a draconian measure that gun owners, led by the NRA, and the firearms manufacturers were united in their effort to defeat. That is, every manufacturer except S&W. As the spring months turned into summer, S&W decided that they would not join the NRA-led coalition but would “fight” the battle on their own. Their rationale was simple. Since they were the leading source of police firearms, they tried to maintain an arms-length distance from the gun lobby coalition. As a result, their effort against the referendum was weak, ineffective, and at times very counter-productive.
The defeat of the Massachusetts referendum by a vote of over 70% was certainly not attributable to S&W. It was the result of a very effective coalition, which was made up of the rest of the firearms industry, including some names that only exist now as shadows of their former glory (Harrington & Richardson, High Standard, Colt’s, Ithaca, and Stevens); police officers, who would have been disarmed off duty; and, of course, hundreds of thousand of Massachusetts gun owners. That coalition saved the day for S&W and let it remain the biggest handgun manufacturer in this country until last year, when Sturm, Ruger & Co overtook it.
In The History of Smith & Wesson, Roy Jinks chronicles the S&W story from its inception in 1852 to the present day. It is the story of how Horace Smith and D. B. Wesson founded S&W to fulfill their dream of making a successful cartridge repeating firearm. “Smith and Wesson played a leadership role in the development of America’s first practical cartridge revolver - the top break system featuring automatic ejection, and the smoothest double action side swing revolver manufactured in the world.” (p. 275)
Both founders would be horrified by what the latest leadership of a once proud leader in the firearms industry has accomplished. They were men who had worked in the firearms industry for many years, undergoing both success and failures in their respective endeavors. Their second partnership in 1856 led to the formation of the twentieth century’s leading handgun manufacturer.
Their history has had its ups and downs, but the S&W story in the past year has reached an all-time low. Last Thursday, October 19, 2000, S&W announced that it plans to lay off 15 percent of its work force. According to Ken Jorgensen, spokesman for S&W, the layoff is due to a consumer boycott. He said, “one of the frustrating things for us is that some of the damage has been done by the pro-gun side. Some of the employees leaving here are members of these pro-gun organizations.”
This is the same Ken Jorgensen who on on March 17, the day that S&W signed its agreement with Cuomo to change its marketing, manufacturing and design practices, said,
“It doesn't change a lot of things in terms of how we do business, but it is going to save us a lot of money on the legal side." Now he’s putting the blame on customers.
Unfortunately for S&W, a deal with the Clinton administration was like playing Russian roulette with their own product; both S&W and gun owners lost.
In exchange for signing the agreement, Ed Schultz believed he was dealing with a trustworthy adversary. He believed it when he was told the government would drop lawsuits against S&W. What he didn’t count on was another Clinton administration lie, and that the animosity between HUD secretary Anthony Cuomo and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the leader of the city and state lawsuits, would preclude the cities from ever taking seriously the notion of dropping S&W from any of the suits. Ed Schultz’s naiveté has been beyond belief.
In addition, Schultz never counted on the wrath of his customers. Gun owners, who had watched the industry sell them out in October 1997, when Schultz and others joined Clinton in the Rose Garden to agree to put locks in every gun they sold, were already angry. Gun owners fumed as they saw government at all levels attack the firearms industry. They watched in horror when it appeared that the industry might cave in to these demands last January and when one company finally acquiesced, gun owners exploded.
The day after S&W signed its infamous agreement, this message, which summarizes the feelings of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, appeared on one Internet mailing list:
Please REPOST everywhere.
Smith & Wesson gets 2/3 of its business from the civilian marketplace. There aren't enough police/military sales to sustain their business. But, there are plenty of other firearms makes and models out there. Both Glock for pistols and Taurus for revolvers come to mind. America’s gun owners, put simply, don't need Smith & Wesson.
IF WE ALL STOPPED BUYING NEW S&W FIREARMS, KNIVES, HATS, AND ACCESSORIES FOR THE REST OF 2000 and 2001, THERE WOULD BE NO S&W TO KEEP THE "DEAL" WITH THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION.
No one has to go without a gun, simply go without a S&W gun.
Even if other manufacturers sell out too, S&W did it first and their business death will send a message. In fact, I'd even think about boycotting all "S&W Authorized Dealers" too (since they won't make legal sales of legal products solely because they have promised S&W they won't. Well I won't either!). There are plenty of other dealers hungry for your money
The S&W CEO was quoted in the WSJ on March 21st saying that, in effect, gun owners are nuts right now but they will keep buying S&W products. History may prove him correct - S&W was the first manufacturer to sell out gun owners in 1968 (the first federal gun control law) in order to get limits on its foreign competition and we kept on buying.
Let’s fool them all - STOP BUYING NEW S&W PRODUCTS AT ANY PRICE, FROM ANYONE.
The avalanche had started. Distributors and dealers read the fine print of the S&W-Clinton-Cuomo-Gore agreement and decided they didn’t want to be any part of it. It only took a nanosecond for the rest of the industry to understand the mood of their customers, and they began to respond negatively to the agreement and take counter measures.
Despite Peter Jennings’ best effort to make NRA the heavy in the demise of S&W, it was a true grass roots conflagration. Not only did gun owners decide not to buy new S&W’s, they did, in fact, do what the email suggested -- tell S&W dealers how they felt. And many gun owners began selling their old S&Ws. It has been reported that many dealers, who once proudly stocked S&Ws, now display every other handgun manufacturer but S&W. In addition countless gun dealers encouraged their customers to buy other makes, and many wouldn’t even take S&Ws in trade.
Unfortunately for the men and women who work for S&W, the situation looks bleak. In July 2000, many were subject to a three-week shutdown due to lack of sales and now the layoffs. There have been stories in the financial press that its British parent company, Tompkins, PLC, wanted to sell S&W, and their capitulation to the Clinton-Gore administration was to make the company more attractive to buyers. It was not only a bad idea; it backfired.
A pro-gun union member on an Internet mailing list left the following comment regarding the apparent demise of S&W:
“I really wonder how the machinist union can support Al Gore? When, due to Clinton/Gore, these hard working union brothers, are being let go of jobs they have held for over 20 years on the average. The Clinton/Gore has now caused nearly 2000 hard working Americans out of work (remember Colt has laid off over 1000 employees so far), and the worse part is, in an area with few decently paying jobs.”
The Clinton-Gore-Cuomo agenda on guns is a simple one -- the elimination of guns from everyone except the police and military. With that goal in mind the plan is clear: do everything possible to make it more difficult to manufacture guns, purchase guns, and own guns.
The British leadership of S&W had no understanding of the threat, and played right into the administration’s agenda. Unfortunately, S&W is not the only loser. American workers, other firearms manufacturers, and American gun owners are also the losers. The only winners are the most anti-gun administration in history.
Tanya K. Metaksa is the former executive director of the National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action. She is the author of Safe, Not Sorry, a self-protection manual, published in 1997. She has appeared on numerous talk and interview shows such as "Crossfire," the "Today" show, "Nightline," "This Week with David Brinkley" and the "McNeil-Lehrer Hour," among others.
E N D
The Price of Appeasement
By Tanya Metaksa
FrontPageMagazine.com | 10/24/00
URL: http://www.frontpagemag.com/archives/guest_column/metaksa10-24-00p.htm
THERE WERE PROBABLY high fives being given by Secretary of Housing and Urban Affairs (HUD) Andrew Cuomo as the latest information from Smith & Wesson (S&W) hit the news media. Cuomo, Clinton, and Gore must be very satisfied with their success at putting a once respected firearms manufacturer into financial crisis.
Of course, they didn’t do it without help from S&W former CEO, Ed Schultz. Yet, S&W’s compromise agreement with the Clinton-Gore administration isn’t the first time S&W has been more interested in “getting along” than fighting for principles.
The year was 1976 and the fight was a referendum on the ballot in Massachusetts. At issue was a statewide ban on handguns, which were defined as any firearm with a barrel length of 16 inches or less. It was a draconian measure that gun owners, led by the NRA, and the firearms manufacturers were united in their effort to defeat. That is, every manufacturer except S&W. As the spring months turned into summer, S&W decided that they would not join the NRA-led coalition but would “fight” the battle on their own. Their rationale was simple. Since they were the leading source of police firearms, they tried to maintain an arms-length distance from the gun lobby coalition. As a result, their effort against the referendum was weak, ineffective, and at times very counter-productive.
The defeat of the Massachusetts referendum by a vote of over 70% was certainly not attributable to S&W. It was the result of a very effective coalition, which was made up of the rest of the firearms industry, including some names that only exist now as shadows of their former glory (Harrington & Richardson, High Standard, Colt’s, Ithaca, and Stevens); police officers, who would have been disarmed off duty; and, of course, hundreds of thousand of Massachusetts gun owners. That coalition saved the day for S&W and let it remain the biggest handgun manufacturer in this country until last year, when Sturm, Ruger & Co overtook it.
In The History of Smith & Wesson, Roy Jinks chronicles the S&W story from its inception in 1852 to the present day. It is the story of how Horace Smith and D. B. Wesson founded S&W to fulfill their dream of making a successful cartridge repeating firearm. “Smith and Wesson played a leadership role in the development of America’s first practical cartridge revolver - the top break system featuring automatic ejection, and the smoothest double action side swing revolver manufactured in the world.” (p. 275)
Both founders would be horrified by what the latest leadership of a once proud leader in the firearms industry has accomplished. They were men who had worked in the firearms industry for many years, undergoing both success and failures in their respective endeavors. Their second partnership in 1856 led to the formation of the twentieth century’s leading handgun manufacturer.
Their history has had its ups and downs, but the S&W story in the past year has reached an all-time low. Last Thursday, October 19, 2000, S&W announced that it plans to lay off 15 percent of its work force. According to Ken Jorgensen, spokesman for S&W, the layoff is due to a consumer boycott. He said, “one of the frustrating things for us is that some of the damage has been done by the pro-gun side. Some of the employees leaving here are members of these pro-gun organizations.”
This is the same Ken Jorgensen who on on March 17, the day that S&W signed its agreement with Cuomo to change its marketing, manufacturing and design practices, said,
“It doesn't change a lot of things in terms of how we do business, but it is going to save us a lot of money on the legal side." Now he’s putting the blame on customers.
Unfortunately for S&W, a deal with the Clinton administration was like playing Russian roulette with their own product; both S&W and gun owners lost.
In exchange for signing the agreement, Ed Schultz believed he was dealing with a trustworthy adversary. He believed it when he was told the government would drop lawsuits against S&W. What he didn’t count on was another Clinton administration lie, and that the animosity between HUD secretary Anthony Cuomo and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the leader of the city and state lawsuits, would preclude the cities from ever taking seriously the notion of dropping S&W from any of the suits. Ed Schultz’s naiveté has been beyond belief.
In addition, Schultz never counted on the wrath of his customers. Gun owners, who had watched the industry sell them out in October 1997, when Schultz and others joined Clinton in the Rose Garden to agree to put locks in every gun they sold, were already angry. Gun owners fumed as they saw government at all levels attack the firearms industry. They watched in horror when it appeared that the industry might cave in to these demands last January and when one company finally acquiesced, gun owners exploded.
The day after S&W signed its infamous agreement, this message, which summarizes the feelings of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, appeared on one Internet mailing list:
Please REPOST everywhere.
Smith & Wesson gets 2/3 of its business from the civilian marketplace. There aren't enough police/military sales to sustain their business. But, there are plenty of other firearms makes and models out there. Both Glock for pistols and Taurus for revolvers come to mind. America’s gun owners, put simply, don't need Smith & Wesson.
IF WE ALL STOPPED BUYING NEW S&W FIREARMS, KNIVES, HATS, AND ACCESSORIES FOR THE REST OF 2000 and 2001, THERE WOULD BE NO S&W TO KEEP THE "DEAL" WITH THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION.
No one has to go without a gun, simply go without a S&W gun.
Even if other manufacturers sell out too, S&W did it first and their business death will send a message. In fact, I'd even think about boycotting all "S&W Authorized Dealers" too (since they won't make legal sales of legal products solely because they have promised S&W they won't. Well I won't either!). There are plenty of other dealers hungry for your money
The S&W CEO was quoted in the WSJ on March 21st saying that, in effect, gun owners are nuts right now but they will keep buying S&W products. History may prove him correct - S&W was the first manufacturer to sell out gun owners in 1968 (the first federal gun control law) in order to get limits on its foreign competition and we kept on buying.
Let’s fool them all - STOP BUYING NEW S&W PRODUCTS AT ANY PRICE, FROM ANYONE.
The avalanche had started. Distributors and dealers read the fine print of the S&W-Clinton-Cuomo-Gore agreement and decided they didn’t want to be any part of it. It only took a nanosecond for the rest of the industry to understand the mood of their customers, and they began to respond negatively to the agreement and take counter measures.
Despite Peter Jennings’ best effort to make NRA the heavy in the demise of S&W, it was a true grass roots conflagration. Not only did gun owners decide not to buy new S&W’s, they did, in fact, do what the email suggested -- tell S&W dealers how they felt. And many gun owners began selling their old S&Ws. It has been reported that many dealers, who once proudly stocked S&Ws, now display every other handgun manufacturer but S&W. In addition countless gun dealers encouraged their customers to buy other makes, and many wouldn’t even take S&Ws in trade.
Unfortunately for the men and women who work for S&W, the situation looks bleak. In July 2000, many were subject to a three-week shutdown due to lack of sales and now the layoffs. There have been stories in the financial press that its British parent company, Tompkins, PLC, wanted to sell S&W, and their capitulation to the Clinton-Gore administration was to make the company more attractive to buyers. It was not only a bad idea; it backfired.
A pro-gun union member on an Internet mailing list left the following comment regarding the apparent demise of S&W:
“I really wonder how the machinist union can support Al Gore? When, due to Clinton/Gore, these hard working union brothers, are being let go of jobs they have held for over 20 years on the average. The Clinton/Gore has now caused nearly 2000 hard working Americans out of work (remember Colt has laid off over 1000 employees so far), and the worse part is, in an area with few decently paying jobs.”
The Clinton-Gore-Cuomo agenda on guns is a simple one -- the elimination of guns from everyone except the police and military. With that goal in mind the plan is clear: do everything possible to make it more difficult to manufacture guns, purchase guns, and own guns.
The British leadership of S&W had no understanding of the threat, and played right into the administration’s agenda. Unfortunately, S&W is not the only loser. American workers, other firearms manufacturers, and American gun owners are also the losers. The only winners are the most anti-gun administration in history.
Tanya K. Metaksa is the former executive director of the National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action. She is the author of Safe, Not Sorry, a self-protection manual, published in 1997. She has appeared on numerous talk and interview shows such as "Crossfire," the "Today" show, "Nightline," "This Week with David Brinkley" and the "McNeil-Lehrer Hour," among others.
E N D