The Putrid Greed Behind The Guns
Posted by Bob Lord
The recent history of Smith and Wesson is a stunning story of raw greed and highlights the pure scum that populate the gun industry.
This piece in Huff Po tells part of the story. According to Huff Po, in the '90's, Smith and Wesson signed a safety agreement with the Clinton administration in exchange for immunity from pending litigation:
In the agreement, Smith & Wesson pledged that any new firearms would not take a magazine holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition, and that dealers would be required to more aggressively apply background checks to buyers. The Clinton administration called the deal the beginning of an "unprecedented partnership" between government and the gun industry.
But the NRA and other gun groups attacked Smith and Wesson and promoted a boycott:
But pro-gun advocates saw the agreement as a rank betrayal, and the National Rifle Association said the company had "run up the white flag of surrender." Under pressure from the boycott, sales fell 40 percent, and Smith & Wesson closed two factories. In 2001, Tompkins PLC, its British owner, sold the company to a U.S. buyer for $15 million, a fraction of the price it had paid for it just a few years earlier.