From: Rusty�Bullethole, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Observer 25.2.01 Trigger happy US blows Brits to bits British-owned gun veteran Smith & Wesson pays ultimate price for attempting to tame the Wild West by Ed Vulliamy NewYork AMERICA'S largest gunmaker, Smith & Wesson hallmark of the Old West - is under the gun and up for sale, victim of its own attempt to make firearms safer and keep weapons out of the wrong hands and those of children. Once the gun slung by Jesse James and the Cisco Kid, and proud symbol of Charlton Heston's National Rifle Association, Smith & Wesson is now more like Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven - for signing a safety deal with the government it is now having to roll back to survive. The company is, moreover, a flagship of British industry in the US, owned by the Tomkins group which is now seeking to sell off the legendary gunmaker. Speaking to The Observer last week, Smith & Wesson spokesman Ken Jorgensen said that 'being British owned has been one of the problems in how we have come to be perceived in this country'. The company is left isolated within the powerful gun lobby for trying to do what it believes was the right thing and being forced by a resultant boycott and sales slump to dilute the agreement it forged with the departed Clinton administration. Jorgensen describes the trials of Smith & Wesson, which celebrates its 150th anniversary next year, as 'a disaster that says a lot about power in the gun world'. It began when the firearms industry had its back to the wall and was facing a tide of hostile public opinion after the Columbine school shooting and similar incidents, and the anti-gun 'Million Mom March'. Gunmakers faced lawsuits from cities modelled on those which pounded the tobacco industry. Congress, paralysed by the gun lobby, had given up on gun control, which was now moving into the courts instead. New Orleans led 30 cities in suing for the costs of violence caused by guns on their streets. The tobacco settlement was possible because one cigarette company, Liggett, came forward to work with the government and cut a deal - which is what Smith & Wesson did in a bold move. Smith's then chief executive, Ed Schultz, met in secret at a hotel room in Hartford, Connecticut, with the equally tenacious Andrew Cuomo, then Housing Secretary. The two spoke man-to-man, Cuomo challenging Schultz with the line: 'I have two five-year olds and a threeyear-old and I have a gun in my home. If you can make me a safer gun, I'll buy it.' A 25-page pact ensued in which the company agreed to controls over obligatory 'smart' locks on newly designed guns to protect children, establishment of an 'Oversight Commission' on gun safety, and background checks and controls over dealers, the frequency of sales to individuals and free-for-all gun shows. Many expected the rest of the industry to resist. But no one foresaw the merciless retort from Heston's NRA and the gun lobby. The rhetoric of the backlash deployed the sacred status of guns in America's origins, history and iconography; even such small steps as child locks and sales control were portrayed as the thin end of the wedge of tyranny. The NRA denounced its veteran and long-time gunmaking icon, in a floodtide of faxes to its three million members, for being a Britishowned 'traitor' ready to 'betray the Bill of Rights'. Smith & Wesson sales plummeted and rival manufacturers closed in - Taurus offered free NRA membership to anyone buying its guns. Schultz told Cuomo that the deal would have to be undone unless another manufacturer could be found to support it, sending Cuomo into a flurry of activity abroad. But a deal with Gaston Glock, owner of America's second largest gun maker, fell apart at the last minute. Last October, Smith & Wesson laid off 125 worker; -15 per cent of its specialist workforce - at the headquarters plant in Springfield, Massachusetts. The militant Gun Owners of America - a group to the right flank of the NRA which has been accused of neo-Nazi ties - hailed the layoffs as 'a sign that the boycott is working and people don't want to support a business that is in collusion with the most anti-gun administration in history'. Worst of all for Smith & Wesson, that administration's period in office was drawing to a close. It was election year, and the man who finally won it was the darling of the gun lobby; the NRA has even said it would be 'working out of his office'. As Governor of Texas; George W. Bush had forbidden cities to sue gun companies. Talking to The Observer last week, Jorgensen said the pressure 'is something you can't ignore. We had to lay off people who had been with us for 30 years'. The company last month concluded a less stringent prototype deal with Boston which nevertheless commits the firm to external locks immediately and internal locks within two years, plus background checks on dealers and at gun shows. and a second, secret, serial number for every weapon. The deal, said Jorgensen, is a model for settlement for 32 other litigant cities. But other manufacturers are fighting the suits. Smith & Wesson 'entered into an agreement that was silly', the NRA said. Ed Schultz left Smith & Wesson at the end of last year; Cuomo is running for governorship of New York. The British connection, says Jorgensen, 'has not helped greatly, and is a fact that has been used by the progun people. It might help if an American icon was American-owned. 'This country is very difficult to understand and this is a very emotional issue with a long history.' www.smith-wesson.com www.nra.org For National Rifle Association of America -- This appears to have been plagerised from a Newsweek story. It misses the main point that S&W isn't that crippled by the boycott - their problem is that none of the dealers will sign up to the agreement. With no dealers, they can't sell any guns. Bye bye S&W. Also if I was Gun Owners of America I would be suing the Observer for libel. Steve. Cybershooters website: http://www.cybershooters.org List admin: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ____________________________________________________________ T O P I C A -- Learn More. Surf Less. Newsletters, Tips and Discussions on Topics You Choose. http://www.topica.com/partner/tag01
