Smith & Wesson’s Deal With the Devil
By Tanya Metaksa
 

FrontPageMagazine.com | April 12, 2001

IT NEVER PAYS to do business with a blackmailer. Gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson is still
paying the price for breaking that rule.

As the Clinton administration geared up for a legal assault on the gun industry last March, Smith
& Wesson cut a deal. The Clinton regime would exempt S&W from gun suits that it was
orchestrating by HUD and various municipalities. In exchange, S&W would let the government
dictate its marketing policies, such as requiring trigger locks on all new guns.

But it was a double-cross. Smith & Wesson got sued anyway. In addition, it was disgraced,
discredited, boycotted and driven to the edge of bankruptcy. Meanwhile, gun makers who
refused to knuckle under have been winning in court and managing to stay in business while
keeping their honor intact.

The current wave of anti-gun litigation started on October 30, 1998, when Mayor Marc H.
Morial and the City of New Orleans became the first municipality in the United States to sue
several firearms manufacturers on the grounds of selling unsafe products. It was a banner media
day for trial lawyers, the National Conference of Mayors, and the gun ban lobby, as the national
media reported their every utterance.

More than 30 other cities and counties followed New Orleans’ lead over the next year.

Now the Louisiana Supreme Court, by a 5-2 decision, reversed a lower court’s ruling and
dismissed New Orleans’ lawsuit.

The dismissal was largely based on Act 291, a June 11, 1999 law that was made retroactive. It
stated that, "any political subdivision or local or other governmental authority of the state is
precluded and preempted from bringing suit to recover … for damages for injury, death, or loss
or to seek other injunctive relief resulting from or relating to the lawful design, manufacture,
marketing, or sale of firearms or ammunition. The authority to bring such actions as may be
authorized by law shall be reserved exclusively to the state."

The City had challenged the constitutionality of Act 291 and its companion, Act 1299, which
provided that manufacturers and sellers are not liable for the improper use of a properly
designed and manufactured product and that the sale of firearms and ammunition by duly
licensed manufacturers and dealers is lawful and not unreasonably dangerous.

The Louisiana Supreme Court took this case after the firearms manufacturers appealed a lower
district court ruling favoring New Orleans, thus making it the first State Supreme Court to rule
on this issue, resulting in a ruling in favor of the manufacturers.

The Court ruled that the legislature had every right to make Act 291 retroactive. It also said that
"this lawsuit constitutes an indirect attempt to regulate the lawful design, manufacture, marketing
and sale of firearms. As such, it squarely conflicts with a reasonable exercise of the state’s
police power and must be dismissed on the grounds that the City lacks a right of action to pursue
this suit."

Where are the press hounds in all this?

Mayor Morial was a media darling in 1998, but last Tuesday he declined most interviews.
Reuters was the only news service that quoted him calling the Louisiana Supreme Court
decision "a travesty of justice." The Wall Street Journal, the only major newspaper to cover the
story in depth, quoted Josh Horowitz of the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence, a
Washington-based antigun group as calling the Louisiana decision "very disappointing."

The rest of the media have omitted any mention of the Louisiana Supreme Court decision, just as
they have with 13 of the 14 lawsuits that have been decided in industry’s favor.

Media or no media, the gun manufacturers are holding their heads high. The same cannot be said
of Smith & Wesson.

I have covered the saga of S& W’s sad decline in a number of FrontPageMagazine.com articles:
The Price of Appeasement, Lawyers, Guns & Money and Stealth Gun Control. Like the
Energizer Bunny – this story keeps going and going. And it gets worse for S&W all the time.

Last Friday, AP reported that Peter Pan Bus Lines has withdrawn its offer to buy the troubled
company. Peter Pan CEO Peter A. Picknelly explained that Tompkins PLC – S&W’s current
owner -- had an "unreasonable view of the value of the company given the very difficult
position it is in with its agreement with the government."

Despite its exemption deal, S&W was the lead defendant in the New Orleans lawsuit.

The outlook for the firearms industry keeps improving. But S&W’s future has never looked
bleaker.

E-mail her at t.metaksa@worldnet.att.net