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Over the past couple of weeks, a third of my e-mail has concerned
a decision of the Smith & Wesson company to sign an "agreement" with
the Clinton Administration -- supposedly in order to avoid massive
state lawsuits -- to act as if the Second Amendment had never been
written.
What began as a depressing event -- foreshadowing, many feared,
the end of private gun ownership -- has suddenly turned into something
else. Gun Owners of America announced what promises to be an effective
boycott against S&W. One by one, other companies told the Clintonistas
where to shove their "agreement". When everybody said the Austrians
would geek, they didn't, and neither did the Belgians -- although
Ruger and Beretta are lying low -- and distributors and dealers have
started sending S&W products back to Springfield, where they came
from.
Most recently, S&W's Chicago lawfirm has quit them.
Even Utah Senator Orrin Hatch -- arguably the most evil individual
in politics today -- could see which way the wind was blowing and has
introduced legislation in the Senate to forbid any further federal
participation in lawsuits against gun companies. And a credible move
is now underway in the congress to render the S&W "agreement" null and
void.
It's sad to think that S&W, which predates the War between the
States, introduced the self-contained metallic cartridge, and in the
1980s gave us the wonderful "Ladysmith" program -- encouraging women
to learn to defend themselves by redesigning weapons specifically to
fit the female hand -- has sunk to the low, crawling, yellow-bellied
pusillanimity that signing Clinton's "agreement" required. But the
fact is, S&W never did make managerial decisions particularly well,
whether it involved Second Amendment politics or merchandising of
weapons.
Just in my lifetime, S&W has come up with bonnet-bees -- or some
focus panel has, or some overly-blonde vice president's wife -- so
stultifyingly imbecilic that it's embarrassing even thinking about
them. Back in the 60s, when they were owned by something called Bangor
Punta (which always sounded to me like one of Tarzan's animal friends)
they called publicly for handgun registration. This latest display of
the white feather is hardly unprecedented. They've always been Second
Amendment weaklings, likely due to their location in the only state
carried by George McGovern, and the fact that -- despite their actual
sales numbers -- they've always seen themselves primarily as a police
outfitter.
Managerial decisions? If ever there was a "suicidal corporation",
S&W is it. Their .41 Magnum Model 58 Military and Police -- featured
prominently in my first novel,
The Probability Broach -- is a slick,
no-nonsense fighting instrument that, employing two cartridge power
levels, can take a man down or stop a car with only a little added
weight or bulk compared to the traditional (and woefully inadequate)
police .38 Special. One of the finest combat revolvers ever conceived,
S&W discontinued it, rather than producing it in stainless steel --
and in .44 Magnum and .45 Colt -- as anyone with any brains would have
done.
Managerial decisions? In the 1990s S&W had somebody working for
them who created what we all ended up calling the "gun of the week"
program, under which S&W came out with more innovative concepts over
the short span of a year than they'd introduced in the 50 preceding
years. Of course the man responsible was run out of the ancient outfit
with extreme prejudice and to this day they're ashamed to talk about
him.
Managerial decisions? In my capacity as a competitive shooter and
retired gunsmith, S&W's Model 610 was technologically and historically
the best revolver ever produced anywhere by anyone. Naturally, after
only a year or two of production and almost no attempt to promote it
to gun buyers or any other part of the public, they discontinued its
manufacture.
Managerial decisions? There are those who may disagree, but again,
in my opinion as a competitor and a gunsmith, S&W never could make
decent semiautomatic pistols, although they've wasted several fortunes
trying to get it right -- and failing every time. Their incompetence
may even account, at least in part, for the remarkable longevity of
Colt's 1911A1. Having shot (and repaired) many S&W autos and listened
to the lamentations of their owners, I have never been moved to buy
one.
S&W revolvers are something else altogether. Magnificent "engines
of destruction" made legendary (most recently) by Clint Eastwood's
"
Dirty Harry", they occupy a different plane of existence. I love them
all. My collection includes a .38, a .357 Magnum with an adjustable
front sight, a 10mm auto (that's the M610 I mentioned above, a sixgun
chambered for the 10mm autopistol cartridge -- it also shoots .40
S&W), a .41 Magnum, a .44 Magnum, and a .45 ACP that works the same as
the 10mm. Once again, as a shooter and gunsmith, I agree they're a
trifle antiquated, designwise, fragile compared with Ruger's output.
But nothing can match their eye-pleasing elegance and hand-pleasing
grace.
I risk boring the non-gunners (and non-wheelgunners) among my
readers because I want them to understand fully -- in technicolor and
3D -- how painful it is for me to write the next few paragraphs. The
proposed boycott of S&W and other measures are good as far as they go.
I support them all wholeheartedly. However they don't go nearly far
enough.
Smith & Wesson must die.
I'm not saying that they don't go nearly far enough to satisfy our
purely emotional desire for justice, retribution, even revenge. I'm
saying that they don't go nearly far enough to guarantee our continued
survival.
Smith & Wesson must die.
Smith & Wesson must be amputated from the American social body
like the gangrenous excrescence it has become and thrown out with the
rest of the medical/political waste. Otherwise the infection will
spread.
Smith & Wesson must die.
Understand that it's going to take more than a boycott; S&W was
prepared for that or they'd never have signed Clinton's "agreement".
Being owned by an English holding company, it's more than likely that
their "surrender" was a put-up job to begin with, a gift from Tony
Blair, intended to give Clinton what he needs to destroy an entire
industry -- exactly as he's promised his comrades under international
agreements he's made to eliminate every personally owned weapon in the
world.
Smith & Wesson must die.
I've heard that the S&W CEO -- in a manner foully reminiscent of
the late Republican National Committee chairman Lee Atwater -- has
been confiding to the media that his customers are "a little crazy
just now, but they'll be back". What that tells me is that this time
-- unlike many similar moments over the past 50 years -- we can't be
satisfied to fend off the latest attack and survive with minimal
losses.
This time it has to cost them something. Have no qualms about it.
A corporation isn't private property -- it's only an extension of the
state. Yes, that's what I said. In applying to the state for special
powers and immunities, a corporation becomes an _extension_ of the
state.
Smith & Wesson must die.
A boycott is not enough. Our goal must be to make life completely
impossible for S&W -- in exactly the same way anti-nuclear activists
made life impossible for the nuclear power industry in the 1960s and
1970s. We must interdict S&W's sales to government agencies at every
level, starve the company, and kill it. For those who have the means,
we must find judges who will issue injunctions against city, county,
or state purchases -- especially preferential purchases -- of S&W
products.
Smith & Wesson must die.
For those who don't, picketing public buildings is an alternative,
as is attending the meetings of your local city council or county
commission. Remind them that they've taken what's supposed to be a
sacred oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. Tell them that, in
choosing to do business with a foreign corporation savaging the Bill
of Rights, they're violating both the letter and the spirit of that
oath.
Smith & Wesson must die.
Get every one of your gunny friends to help. If you see a S&W auto
or revolver in a cop's holster, don't bother him -- in these post-Waco
days he'll probably kill you if you do, and cook you, and eat you, and
get a commendation for it -- but find out if your city has a contract
with S&W and demand that it be terminated immediately on the grounds
(if all else fails) that the company falls short of Bill of Rights
compliance.
Smith & Wesson must die.
Lawyers among us need to injoin HUD and other government agencies
prepared to reward S&W for its cowardly behavior. One of the goodies
Clinton promised S&W (and anybody else who signs on) is preferential
treatment in the purchase of weapons by the the Department of Housing
and Urban Development and similar agencies. (I was unaware that HUD is
a major weapons buyer -- that's something, in itself, that should be
looked into.) I could be mistaken, but doesn't that sound illegal to
you?
Whatever happened to competitive bidding?
Smith & Wesson must die.
Choke off S&W's sales for six months while the courts muddle the
whole thing, and S&W will miraculously find the grounds they need to
abrogate the deal. It's either that or be thrown onto the cliche-heap
of hisory. As New York's nasty attorney general can attest -- he's the
disappointed little creep whose cherished plans have backfired and
who's now trying to argue that a boycott is a violation of antitrust
laws -- it was signed under extreme duress that he himself helped
apply.
(This is the pocket Nazi who warned gun companies to comply with
his demands or prepare to greet their bankruptcy attorneys at their
door. What they need to tell him is that times change and regimes
change with them. He will learn to obey the highest law of the land
or prepare to greet federal marshals at his door with a big, noisy
collection of manacles, leg-irons, and belly-chains, and TV cameras to
record the moment as they shove him into the Black Maria and haul him
away.)
Smith & Wesson must die.
In the long run, this war will be won in the court of popular
opinion. We've always known -- and now, thanks to
Gary Kleck and
John Lott, we can prove -- that guns and gun ownership save lives. Which
means that anything or anybody who interferes with unencumbered
ownership of and free access to guns endangers lives. In today's
battle of sound bites and slogans, that translates as "S&W kills
kids".
We need to talk publicly about S&W's "Kid Killer Kontrakt".
Smith & Wesson must die.
If you ever hope to live in a civilization where you can walk into
a hardware store, put your cash on the counter, and walk out with the
weapon of your choice -- without ever having produced identification
or signing even a single piece of paper -- then Smith & Wesson must
die.
Maybe once they're bankrupt, no more than a name, and in the hands
of pro-gun Americans again, we can go back to buying their beautiful
revolvers.
Smith & Wesson must die.
Permission to redistribute this article is herewith granted by the
author -- provided that it is reproduced unedited, in its entirety, and
appropriate credit given.
My home on the web, The Webley Page: www.webleyweb.com/lneil/
My e-zine The Libertarian Enterprise: www.webleyweb.com/tle/
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