Some word has come out on how the new ownership views the Clinton "sell out" deal. News at the "black box" icon at:
National CCW Reciprocity Foundation
http://www.NationalCCW.com

Considering that S&W entered into a binding legal agreement with sanctions for failure to comply with the agreement that would have put the company out of business for good, only an selfish idiot would demand that a company take action that would guarantee its own destruction to please him.

Put me on your selfish idiot list. By the way, what are we calling the people on your side of the issue?

[url]http://www.NationalCCW.com[/url]

damn i hope we don't lose another manufacture

Sounds like a step in the right direction.  Let's not kill them off because they didn't take the whole thing in one bite.

Norm

Oslow,

You have the absolute right to refuse to purchase S&W products.  You have no right to expect them to destroy their business to make you happy.  There is no honor in committing suicide for a principle.  It leaves your opponent standing victorious over your lifeless body.

I don't expect S&W to destroy their business, although they are doing a swell job so far. I expect them to quit kissing a** before they "DO" destroy their business.

S&W put their own head on the chopping block.  They must die.  We can afford to lose a few companies to win the war.  We obviously can't afford to close down all the gun manufacturers, but we can afford to lose Smith.

I just wish they would hurry up and go bankrupt, then they can be dissolved and maybe someone else will buy them up for $0.10 on the dollar and start a good company.

Anyone buying S&W would be saddled with the agreement.  It may be possible for someone to buy the firearms product lines and maybe the related facilities, but not the whole company.

By the way.  Who's "We"?  Do you have a mouse in your pocket?  Who the hell do you think you are that you can cavalierly write of the livelihoods of the thousands of people who depend on their jobs at the various firearms manufacturers for your own twisted satisfaction?  Letting Smith and Wesson die is a victory for Sarah Brady and her ilk that will only embolden them to push harder.  What would be better for firearms owners and the industry, S&W breaking out, overcoming and burying the agreement or gioving up and going out of business?  If you answer the latter, you are truly an unthinking stooge for Sarah Brady.

When I was last at the S&W factory on tour, I saw work done for Kimber, Caspian, Weatherby, and , get this, they pulled hot off their hammer forge a transmission fork for, what else, a Harley-Davidson. They have a big business still going on, and probably have more work than I saw going through there.

So..........

Wick

Gee Troy,

While you’re hard at work destroying the very people who make the guns you can’t live without because they are trying desperately to remain solvent and produce those guns, maybe you could take a little time out to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.  Rather than acting like a bunch of self-destructive, cannibalistic idiots, why don’t you go after the people attacking S&W and all the other manufacturers?

The only message that helping to destroy S&W will send the other manufacturers is that certain of their customers are so stupid that not only will they burn their bridges behind them, they will burn the ones they are standing on, too.  Why don’t you just join HCI or whatever they are calling themselves now?  You are doing their work for them.  If you can’t recognize that, then you are truly nothing more than a mind-numbed robot for the left.

And Smith & Wesson will stop making their own firearms.  They can make lots more money making metal parts for other companies, and get out from under the crushing legal bills.  Then other gun manufacturers will see it and discover that the profit margin making parts for Toyotas and Hondas is much higher, without the legal hassles and moronic customers attacking them for trying to stay in business.  In no time at all, there won't be any new guns or spare parts for the old ones.  Ammo?  You don't need ammunition if you don't have guns.

Morons.  Just a bunch of whining, selfish, know-nothing morons.

They shot themselves in the foot.

Corporations determine policy based on the economic impact to the profitability of the company. This wasn't a moral decision on the part of S&W. They decided that their agreement with the Clinton administration would have a positive impact on the profitability of the company. They made a bad decision and if it means the end of S&W so be it.

Troy couldn't have said it any better: "It's a tough lesson, but those are the ones that are often remembered the best..."
 

I'm just a guy with an opinion and cash to spend.  I won't be spending it with S&W.  F*ck'em.

As far as profits -vs- liability, the auto parts world ain't that rosie either.  My uncle is a VP at a company that stopped making wheels for Harley because of the [b]liability[/b].  Yep, they felt that 20 years of profits could be wiped out in 1 or 2 lawsuits.  Wasn't worth it.

Our primary area of pursuit should be the legistlature.  We need to stop agreements like the S&W agreement, and stop the lawsuits.

However, IMHO S&W was so stupid to sign that agreement that they must be taken down.  I understand that though they had to save their company, but the agreement was so flawed that most of the lawsuits weren't even dropped!  More cities added lawsuits after the agreement.  Tell me what benefit S&W received from selling us out?

"We", the gun buying public, can afford to lose S&W.  They go bankrupt, their assets are sold and hopefully new gun companies rise from the ashes.  I don't see  that as a victory for HCI.

S&W also forgot the 11 commandment for businesses.

"Know Thy Customer"

Gee Troy,

Refusing to buy S&W products and calling for them to be driven out of business is doing NOTHING to destroy S&W?  Working against the anti-gunners by helping them destroy S&W?  A novel idea!  Dumb, but novel.

rkb,

Troy doesn't appear to know how businesses are run or how the legal system can be used to bankrupt individuals or businesses with frivilous lawsuits, or in the case of the firearms industry to sidestep the Constitution and ban guns by putting their makers out of business with crushing legal bills.  That the suits are being dismissed left and right won't help that much because many of the suits are being refiled with different wording, requiring the gunmakers to fight them all over again.  How can the anti-gunners afford to file suit after suit?  They are using public funds; your tax dollars at work.  

fight...

The auto parts thing was an example only.  I assumed you were smart enough to figure that out.  I guess I was wrong.

You also don't have a clue how big businesses and the legal system work.  They won't go bankrupt.  They will stop making their own firearms lines and concentrate on the other aspects of their business, including making parts for other gun makers and parts for other industries.  



Don't include me in your "We" because I know that the gun buying public can't afford to lose S&W and its product line.  No new company will rise to take its place.  They wouldn't be able to gather enough investors to get the deal off the ground in the face of the crushing legal bills.  [b]THAT[/b] is a victory for HCI.

If you can't see that simple fact, then you might as well plan for the day when there aren't any more new guns.  It won't be that far away.

Why?  They sell out to gun-grabbers and we can't afford to lose them?  I don't want to see them necessarily go down for the count, however, I'll lose no sleep over it.



Can I finish this quote?  It should go something like, " . . . as long as sell-outs like S&W continue to compomise principal and common sense for the sake of political correctness."

Dave G - I know the auto industry was an example, but you gave it as the high profit solution and it's not.

AFA bankruptcy, I think YOU don't know how big business will work.  S&W will setup the gunside of things to go bankrupt.  It's a way out of the liabilities.  The rest of the company will go on to other things, if it can.

Their tooling will be sold at auction.  Barrel rifling machines don't have too many other uses.  Somebody like Kimber will buy some of those and expand their product lines, or a new group might buy these tools and tooling and start up production.  I know, it's a bad time to start a gun company but it still happens.

You go spend your money support S&W.  Show them, the anti's and the other gun companies that we gun owners don't care about deals made with HUD.  Maybe Colt can make a deal with the department of Agriculture next limiting all guns to single shot, factory reloaded weapons.  Then we can all buy Colt guns and show we support that as well.

With friends like S&W, we don't need enemies.

AMEN BROTHER...............!

Dave G,  I see your points and I understand what you mean exactly.  I would hate to see S&W go completely under.  Hell, three of my firearms are S&W's.  But I swear that I will never buy another S&W firearm, knife, etc. as long as I live.  They are traitors as far as I am concerned.  Life is about picking sides.

Some people stand on morals & principals, some are politiks and stand whereever they think is best for themselves and yet others stand on the bottom-line.

S&W chose they wrong side when it comes to gun-wners and gun BUYERS.

I hope someone turns the company around and gets them out from under the legal strangle-hold that the last people tied around S&W's neck and cinched it tight!

In the millitary there is a saying, "The life of one, to save many."  S&W might be the one as far as gun manufacturers go....

As far as worrying about peoples jobs,  I do not think S&W as a whole will go down, like the earlier post said they are making alot of things besides guns these days...  which is fine by me.

USMC_LB

[b]Smith & Wesson Refuses To End "Sell Out" Deal[/b]

I refuse to buy S&W i don't own any and i won't eather. this is my choice i am well content with my guns i have. I pray and hope that Remington will not do this.

I think what’s sad is S&W was forced into this situation to begin with.

Yes, S&W signed the “agreement”, due to extortion pressure from the
government, politicians, lawyers and judges who are willing to let frivolous
lawsuits destroy companies.  I thinks S&W was the victim of an out of control
government and legal system.  It ranks right up there with tobacco law suits and
spilling hot coffee netting billions from lawsuits.

It’s easy for some of you to say “they didn’t have to sign”. (Especially with 20/20
hind sight.)  To that I say BS. If you had 60 million in assets, all those employees
to take care off, plus business obligations.  I suspect you’d find it just a little bit
difficult to thumb your nose at the US government and the threat of being sued
out of business.  S&W was forced into a difficult position and made a bad
decision.  And they are suffering for it.

No one is more saddened to see the fall of S&W. I am a wheel gun fan and my 40-year-old Smiths are some of the gun maker’s finest work. The fit and finish is superb and the actions are as smooth as glass.

Did S&W really think that the gun buying public would embrace their actions and buy up every S&W product they could produce? It's always dangerous to "Get in bed with the enemy." S&W gambled and lost.

BTW, there's nothing wrong with buying used S&W firearms or other products. I just won't buy anything new that the company produces as long as their agreement is in place.

I've said this before and I will say it every time S&W name is mentioned.I hope they go out of business and a NEW companie rises from the ashes.The meat and potatoes for any gun manufacturer are pistols and rifles,not revolvers.I'd say 95% if not more L.E. agencies are issuing pistols to their officers.Since S&W does not make a rifle of their own and revolvers are'nt in demand with L.E.O.s that leaves their $hitty pistols.My dept. issues S&W and I hate them,I've learned to shoot them but I have to readjust big time when I shoot a superior pistol like Glock,HK,or SIG.
S&W pistols have limited magazine capacity compared to the other manufacturers,a BIG thing to street cops.Like I said their pistols suck period,I will admit they make the finest revolvers.I don't know why they can't keep up with the other makers when it comes to pistols.
Until they fold and rise up with a new companie outlook regarding the agreement and start producing pistols that are on par with SIG and Glock they will NEVER get my money!

It is real simple. As long as those in control at SW think that adherence to the sell out is ok, then it will be a cold day in hell before they ever see another penny of my money.

And what most of you guys don't realize is that S&W CAN'T simply back out of the agreement without suffering serious sanctions.  They entered into a contract with the various governmental agencies.  

What they can do is what they are doing.  Nitpicking the terms of the agreement, denying that this means that, throwing up their hands on the smartgun crap because the technology doesn't work and generally not doing much of anything they said they would.

I own one Smith, a limited edition Richard Petty seven time Winston Cup champion revolver and a beautiful piece of machinery.

But, no, I would not buy a Smith semi today. Sorry.

I think we are pointing our fingers in the wrong direction. The people we should be boycotting is the Democratic Party and the big trial lawyers that fund them. This practice of legislation by litigation is wrong and is undermining freedoms left and right. The only reason S&W decided to sell out was because of the fear of being sued. If we could get rid of laws that let freeloaders sue McDonalds for several million dollars for making hot coffee that they spilled on themselves while they tried to carry it in between their legs, we would have a much better country.