-Caveat Lector-
>From Wash (DC) Post
<<Excuse me ... did not the Prez make some comment about having to figure out
*how* to explain to his European 'friends' *why* the American Government didn't
pass more gun control? >>
"" "Europeans are so sanctimonious about their gun-control laws," said Jim
Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police and a former ATF
official. "But their shock at our rate of gun deaths doesn't keep them from
making guns. ... It's ironic that the money goes back to those countries." ""
> Exporters of Guns Flock to U.S.
>
> By Sharon Walsh
> Washington Post Staff Writer
> Monday, June 28, 1999; Page A1
>
> As increasingly restrictive gun laws are enacted in major industrialized
> countries, gunmakers around the globe are flocking to the biggest and least
> regulated gun market in the world – the United States.
>
> At least a dozen entities with familiar names in the United States, from
> historic Smith & Wesson and Winchester to Beretta and Glock, are owned by
> foreign companies, many of which are legally constrained from selling in their
> own countries many of the guns they produce. But as countries overseas
> increasingly have cracked down on gun sales at home, they have not passed
> similar laws regarding exports.
>
> Just more than half of the 1.7 million handguns made or imported in the United
> States came from foreign companies or were made by their subsidiaries, according
> to 1997 figures from individual companies and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
> Firearms.
>
> Gun industry officials say they are simply selling their products in the best
> possible market.
>
> "Companies invest where there are markets, and the U.S. is one of the few places
> in the world where gun ownership proliferates," said Wendy Cukier, a professor
> of business and justice studies at Ryerson Polytechnic University in Toronto who
> has written about differences in international gun laws. "That doesn't change
> the fact that Americans decide the level of gun ownership they'll tolerate."
>
> Jeff Reh, Beretta U.S.A. Corp.'s general counsel, said the U.S. subsidiary is
> responsible only for marketing guns here. "It's not hypocritical for a company
> to obey the laws of the country it sells in," he said of the differences in gun
> laws in the United States and Italy. "It doesn't mean the company agrees the law
> is logical. It just means it's acting as a good corporate citizen."
>
> "Some countries choose to have stricter gun laws. ... We think that's
> unfortunate," said Travis Hall, public relations manager for Browning and U.S.
> Repeating Arms Co., which owns the license to make Winchester firearms. Browning
> and Winchester are sister companies owned by Fabrique Nationale Group, an entity
> of the Belgian government. Many of their guns are made in Japan, where it is
> virtually impossible for a private citizen to own a gun.
>
> Beretta U.S.A., with U.S. headquarters in Accokeek, Md., is a subsidiary of the
> Italian gun company P. Beretta S.p.A. Glock Inc., one of the biggest providers
> of guns to U.S. police departments, is an offshoot of an Austrian company.
> SIGArms Inc., an importer of handguns in New Hampshire, is a division of Swiss
> Industrial Group, which imports from Switzerland and Germany. Each of those
> countries has more restrictive gun laws than the United States.
>
> "One of the things that isn't understood about the gun business in this country
> is the extent of foreign ownership and importing of foreign-made guns," said Tom
> Diaz, of the Violence Policy Center, a pro gun-control group. "When people talk
> about guns in America, they tend to talk about patriotism and try to wrap it in
> the American flag."
>
> According to a recent United Nations study on firearms regulation, 29 countries
> in the past five years tightened rules on the civilian ownership of firearms.
> Gun manufacturers and other experts say that as tougher gun laws have been
> enacted overseas, the United States has become even more important as a gun
> market.
>
> "The biggest market [for guns] is in the U.S.," said Ken Jorgenson, general
> counsel of Smith & Wesson, the largest maker of handguns in the United States
> and a subsidiary of a British conglomerate. Two years ago, after a 1996
> elementary-school massacre in Scotland, the British government outlawed the sale
> of all handguns and ordered the surrender of all existing handguns.
>
> With virtually all gun manufacturers privately held, it is difficult to assemble
> a complete picture of the profits, revenues or even market share in the global
> gun market. Only one U.S. gun manufacturer – Sturm, Ruger & Co. – is publicly
> owned and thus discloses financial information, while many foreign-owned
> companies are part of big corporations that do not break out financial
> information about their subsidiaries. The U.S. government keeps records only of
> how many guns each country exports, not how many guns are exported by a
> particular company, and other governments provide even less information. The
> Commerce Department, in fact, reports higher gun imports than the ATF.
>
> "Most governments don't make their figures available," said Kate Joseph, an
> analyst for the British American Security Information Council. "Private
> companies don't make their figures available. So it's virtually impossible to
> get a clear picture of it."
>
> In some cases, foreign gun companies have set up plants in the United States
> specifically so they can make guns here that they couldn't import. Congress has
> set higher standards for guns that are imported than for guns made in this
> country.
>
> For example, Taurus International Manufacturing Inc., an underling of Brazil's
> largest gunmaker, produces guns in Miami and also imports them. Brazilian
> companies export about 90 percent of the guns made in that country, making it
> the second-largest handgun exporter to the United States. In 1982, Taurus opened
> a plant in Miami that makes tens of thousands of guns and is one of the biggest
> gun factories in the country. It sells the majority of those guns in the United
> States.
>
> Taurus, maker of such guns as the Raging Bull 454 Casull double-action revolver,
> is one of the largest makers of firearms in the world. It began shipping
> handguns to the United States in 1968, not long after the Brazilian government
> passed legislation that would restrict its sales there, particularly of 9mm
> semiautomatic pistols, according to an account at the time by the publication
> Guns & Ammo.
>
> Gun laws may get even stronger in Brazil. The state of Rio de Janerio recently
> passed one of the toughest gun laws in the world, and Brazilian lawmakers are
> debating a similar law for the whole country.
>
> Industry officials note that foreign buyers have helped bring needed financing
> and stability to some of the most venerated U.S. gun manufacturers, notably
> Smith & Wesson, a formerly family-owned business founded by Horace Smith and
> Daniel B. Wesson in the 1850s.
>
> "A lot of gun owners were very upset that this icon of an American company was
> sold to the British," Jorgenson said. "But it was probably the best thing that
> ever happened to this company. We might not still be here if it hadn't
> happened."
>
> Tomkins PLC, a British diversified manufacturer of prosaic but profitable
> products ranging from lawn mowers to baked goods and windshield wipers, bought
> Smith & Wesson in 1987. At the time the gunmaker's manufacturing equipment could
> have been a turn-of-the-century museum exhibit. Tomkins later poured more than
> $60 million into updating it.
>
> Glock of Austria assembles about 200,000 handguns a year from Austrian-made
> parts at a plant near Atlanta. Austria is also the No. 1 exporter of guns to the
> United States, shipping more than 170,000 guns in 1998, according to the Customs
> Service. Virtually all of those guns were Glocks, since there is no other major
> Austrian exporter of guns. In Austria, citizens must be 21 to own a handgun,
> must have a license and can buy a maximum of two handguns per person.
>
> Beretta U.S.A. is a subsidiary of the oldest gun company in the world, founded
> in Italy in the 14th century. Like other European countries, Italy requires
> hunters to show membership in a hunting club in which they have been trained
> before they get a license for a rifle. For a handgun, individuals must prove
> they genuinely need the gun for self-defense.
>
> Others note that the countries that produce these guns like to point out that
> the United States has far more gun crimes and deaths than they do.
>
> "Europeans are so sanctimonious about their gun-control laws," said Jim Pasco,
> executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police and a former ATF official.
> "But their shock at our rate of gun deaths doesn't keep them from making guns.
> ... It's ironic that the money goes back to those countries."
>
>
> © 1999 The Washington Post Company
A<>E<>R
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