WJPBR Email News List [EMAIL PROTECTED] Peace at any cost is a prelude to war! SUNDAY Q&A Gun maker stands up to Clinton Geoff Metcalf interviews Bob Morrison, Executive VP of Taurus International ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- By Geoff Metcalf © 2000 WorldNetDaily.com Unable to push its hard-core gun control agenda through Congress, the Clinton administration has taken to using the threat of massive lawsuits to force gun manufacturers to do its bidding. Smith and Wesson recently gave in to the administration's demands to avoid legal harassment. But not all manufacturers are caving in. Among those standing firm is Miami-based Taurus International, which makes pistols, revolvers and rifles. WorldNetDaily reporter Geoff Metcalf interviewed Taurus Executive Vice President / Chief Operating Officer Bob Morrison about threats and offers of bribery Morrison claims his company has received from public officials. Morrison further describes the extraordinary means government personnel have employed in attempting to punish gun manufacturers that hold their ground. Question: Bob, you were incorrectly quoted in the Wall Street Journal on March 21, 2000. What did the Journal say you said? Answer: They said we were going to go along with the same thing that Smith and Wesson had signed, and that we were ready to sign on and that we echoed their concerns. That was a complete misquote. Q: So what did you do? A: We came back with a statement that said they had really gotten it wrong and we restated our position: We sell only to federally licensed distributors who sell only to federally licensed dealers and we couldn't find any reason for us to make any more prohibitions on their sales after all that has already been placed there by the federal government. Q: One thing I was not aware of until I checked out your website was this locking device deal. You offered your locking device to Smith and Wesson, didn't you? A: Yes we did. In fact, we have had an integral locking device on all our firearms since 1997. Over a year ago, we sent the entire industry a letter, including Smith and Wesson, in which we offered to sell them those locks for their firearms -- which would be perfectly acceptable and become integral to their firearms -- at our cost. There would be no profit to us. We re-reminded Smith and Wesson of that offer in a letter (in late March) offering them the same devices. This is what they promised the government they would develop within the next two years. Q: What was their response to you? A: We have had no response. Q: So what they are telling the government they will develop within two years, you are willing to give them at your cost? A: That is exactly correct. We don't understand it. We have been putting gun locks on all our firearms since 1998. We just simply didn't understand why Smith and Wesson would have done that. In addition, they have said they would start shipping all their guns with locks within 60 days, but they have been doing that for over a year. Q: Now the government is talking antitrust because, apparently you, Glock, Browning and some others have said, "No, we don't want to do what you want us to do." A: That is absolutely correct. We made an independent decision when we found out we had been offered the same deal as Smith and Wesson. We independently said we wouldn't be interested. Q: And then the phone rang. Who called? A: Strangely enough, I got a call from HUD Secretary Andrew Cuomo in which he furthered this conspiracy by offering to bribe us. If we would come with S&W, he would absolutely make us favored with lush government contracts to buy more firearms from us. Q: Hold on a moment. If you as the chief operating officer of Taurus were to offer a similar kind of coercive deal to someone else, you'd get in trouble, wouldn't you? A: I think it's called a bribe. And, that is certainly illegal. Q: What was kid Cuomo's response when you said, "Thanks, but no thanks."? A: He was frustrated that we wouldn't go along with it. He even offered to tailor the deal to our particular needs. When we said we would never abrogate the fiduciary responsibility of a branch of a publicly owned company to a committee of five people -- only one of those being from our company -- he seemed perplexed and wondered why we wouldn't want to do that. Q: I try not to laugh, because this is serious. However, this is abuse of power under the color of authority. A: I have a letter from New York Attorney General Elliot Spitzer, addressed to the Honorable Bill Pryor, attorney general of the state of Alabama. I believe Pryor is the president of the Attorneys General Association. The letter, dated March 16, 2000, starts out, "Dear Attorney General Pryor: I would like to request your participation in a nationwide coalition of state and local governments using the power of their purse strings to encourage gun manufacturers to operate ..." Basically, he wants us to cave in to all of their untoward demands. He says, "Law enforcement purchases constitute a substantial portion of the gun industry's business. Together, we're in a unique position to dictate the terms of that business and to make it safer for our constituents." And it goes on and on. He's asking them to join a coalition of governments that will "award firearm contract only to those entities willing to abide by the principles that we enunciated in this new code." Q: Now that sounds like an antitrust violation. You guys are faced with the potential threat of an antitrust suit because a number of gun manufacturers have refused to "abide by the principles ... enunciated in" the government's blackmail deal. Yet, the government seems to be involved in the same kind of reverse attack by saying we are only going to buy from people who do what we want them to do the way we want them to do it. A: We were confused by the same thing. We looked at it and said, if there is anybody using antitrust against anyone, it is the government against us. We have the right to make a business decision not to do anything that would injure our business. Like I said, I exercise fiduciary responsibility for a corporate branch. I would never give up the control of this company to four dissident people and one regulatory agency. I just couldn't do that, yet, that is what the other company has apparently wanted to do with their company. Q: That used to be called fascism. One of the questions is, given the government's threat of the antitrust deal against those folks who won't tow their line, is there any kind of reciprocal legal recourse in which you guys can bring suit against the government? A: Well, that's certainly being looked into. I can't comment on it more than that. I am part of the Heritage Fund. (Editor's note: Hunting and Shooting Sports Heritage Foundation Fund, unrelated to the mutual fund or the think tank.) We are looking into any avenues that are open to us to retaliate against this abuse of power. I guess I could call it tyranny. When I looked it up it seems to fit all the definitions. At this point, as an American citizen, I am totally taken aback by all that is happening here. I will say we have had some support from Congress. We have had letters. Q: Bob Barr wrote you, didn't he? A: Yeah. He stiffened my backbone a bit by complimenting us and thanking us for standing up to protect Second Amendment rights and has offered to do everything possible to prevent the administration from what he says is following through with its threats to punish Taurus for not capitulating to its illegal pressures. I really do thank him for that. Q: What other support have you received? A: We have had thousands of e-mails and hundreds and hundreds of faxes supporting our position and I do appreciate that. It gets pretty lonely out here on the battle lines. If you could, ask your readers to talk to their congressmen and write to their senators and ask them what is going on with this thing. They are abusing their power with aplomb. They don't seem to get prosecuted or hurt on this. So we are looking into legal remedies, but at this point, I am not at liberty to go into those. Q: Actually, Thomas Jefferson said what you alluded to. He said, "When governments fear the people, there is liberty; but when the people fear the government," which is where we are at right now, Jefferson called that tyranny. A: It is tyranny. We are looking at probably the most burdensome standards that have ever been imposed on a retailer right now by just having to pass through the grids of getting a firearm. Q: You are the most regulated manufactured product in the country now. A: And the customers are already subjected to the most invasive background checks ever imposed on an American consumer. They have to pass an FBI screening to be able to buy our products. And the fact that we rely on those regulatory agencies to do their assigned jobs is enough of a litmus test than we could ever imagine imposing on anybody. What more could they want us to do? Q: One of the frustrating things must be the complicity of the mainstream media. You are a southern Florida company. When this S&W thing happened, the Miami Herald never even spoke to you, did they? A: They did not. And we asked them to do that. I'll step that up one level and speak about my face-to-face conversation with Mayor Pinellis. We had been discussing with him the lawsuit and what we would have to do in order to be relieved from this lawsuit and many of the things they proposed to us were very close to what our competitor has signed away. We decided we didn't want to do that. However, in my face-to-to face confrontation with him, I said, "Please Mayor Pirellis, won't you, for the sake of the children and for the sake of the safety of this community, allow the Heritage Fund to put Project Home Safe -- that's where we give away free gun locks without any limit on the number -- and do that in Miami? If you have a heart, do that." And not unlike your fellow in Bellevue, Wash., he said, "Not unless you go all the way with us." It's all or nothing at all, basically. And we pleaded with him again. I sat and looked him right in the eye and said, "You have to have a bigger heart than this. You've got to care about the people." And, at this point, they have turned us down. We have been in this plea position for 10 months. We did do it ourselves in Broward County, which is the adjoining county to Miami / Dade, but we live in Miami / Dade County. This is the same Mayor Pinellis who said that if there were a riot in the streets in this city, he would blame it on the president and Janet Reno. That has to do with the Elian Gonzales thing that has made all the news. Q: Bob, I want you to know you are not the Lone Ranger. I recently spoke with the owner of a Bay Area gun shop and he told me he had made the decision not to carry your competitor's product anymore. He tried to get some local radio, television or newspaper to talk to him. They wouldn't touch the story. A: It is unfortunate. We have had a lot of dealers who have come to us and asked us to ramp up our production because they are going to look for substitutes for some of the other firearms that are out there. We appreciate that and want those dealers to know we will be right there by their side and have no intention of veering off this course we have taken. Q: Not too long ago, Citbank had a little flap where there was some internal policy dictating they would not do business with people who dealt with firearms. Well, in the wake of an overwhelming crush of people who were tearing up cards and canceling accounts, they changed their position. Although the government is now saying it will buy only from people who are going to do what they want, the way they want it, the other side of that coin is consumers. The rest of the buying public is doing the same thing. They are saying, "Hey, I'm not going to buy that product." A: That's a choice that the consumer has, just as a business has; we all have choices we can make. In no way would I ever try to influence anybody not to make a legal choice. The thing that most people don't realize is this is the most legal business of all legal businesses. There has never been a business like this that has had such overwhelming government scrutiny. We simply don't understand why this has taken place. Q: The fact of the matter is, this long list of things the government is requiring is not going to reduce crime an iota. A: We are at an all time low. In 1998, we had an all time low of 900 fatalities that were associated with firearms. That is in comparison to over 40,000 deaths by motor vehicles, almost 17,000 by falls, 9,000 by poisoning. What is going on is the administration has found a target that is weak, that is rather indefensible and is a hot button they can push -- and they are furthering their political agenda by attacking a very, very legal industry -- something I would never have imagined in this country. Q: I've heard from a lot of folks wanting to know if they can contribute to any kind of legal defense fund. A: Right now, our preliminary explorations are being funded by all the members of the Heritage Fund. That fund is taking one percent of all our gross profits. There is no place right now where the public can contribute, but I'll look into that for you. Q: What is this trigger-locking device you have and have offered to Smith and Wesson and others? A: What we have is a mechanical device that blocks the action of the gun being used at all. It is a very simple device. A quarter of a turn clockwise turns it on and a quarter of a turn counterclockwise turns it off. Q: Is this just a hammer block? A: It is a hammer or an action block, depending on the firearm. Q: I used to have an old Walther and it had a little bar safety thing where the hammer just wouldn't go past the bar. A: It's very much like that. But this is a patented device that we have developed and offered to share with everyone in the industry at our cost. Q: Since Miami's mayor has rejected your offer of gun locks, why not just make them available to the individual retailer? A: We did that in Broward County. However, we don't want to put the gunshop owner in the position of being sued if somebody doesn't use it properly, so we wanted to do it through the cities. We have done that in over 100 cities in the Untied States at this point. Project Home Safe is probably the most successful program we have at this point. Q: In light of the tobacco companies' problems and the fact they have always complied with the requirement for the Surgeon General's warning labels, has the government offered to in any way immunize you from liability should you fully comply with their new restrictions? A: No, they haven't offered very much of anything other than the opportunity to turn our companies over to their committees. Q: Yeah, but haven't they offered to have the cities that are suing gun manufacturers to back off? A: They offered that in the other case but they failed to come through. Some of the cities that were suing Smith and Wesson have left the scene but not all. 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