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Trigger happy US blows
Brits to bits
British-owned gun veteran Smith
& Wesson pays ultimate price for
attempting to tame the Wild West
Ed Vulliamy in New York
Observer
Sunday February 25, 2001
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 three-year-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 British-owned '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
gunmaker, fell apart at the last minute.
Last October, Smith & Wesson laid off
125 workers - 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 pro-gun 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.'
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2001