Continue the S&W boycott!
Found on "GunGames.com":
New Smith & Wesson owner inherits
marketing dilemma
DATE: 5/16/01
BOSTON -- Saf-T-Hammer, the small trigger lock company that bought Smith & Wesson this week, inherits a critical dilemma facing the nation's oldest gun maker: how to fend off potentially crippling lawsuits while regaining the trust of gun owners.
Smith & Wesson infuriated many gun owners last year when it agreed with the federal government and the city of Boston to wide-reaching safety measures in exchange for the promise of being dropped from lawsuits against the industry. * * *
Sales fell by half, company spokesman Ken Jorgensen said, and 125 people were laid off.
The question now is what the new ownership means for the safety agreements, and whether -- or some say when -- Smith & Wesson will try to get back into the good graces of gun owners.
Cameron Hopkins, editor in chief of Firearms Marketing Group, [who has been a leading apologist for S&W] thinks it will, and soon. In fact, he predicts that Robert Scott, President of Saf-T-Hammer and a former Smith & Wesson vice president, will appear at this week's National Rifle Association convention in Kansas City, Mo., and beg the forgiveness of gun owners.
Mitchell Saltz, founder and chief executive of Scottsdale, Ariz.-based
Saf-T-Hammer, said the company is reviewing the obligations it had inherited from former owner Tomkins PLC, which had owned Smith & Wesson since 1987, BUT WILL RESPECT THE AGREEMENTS IT HAS SIGNED.
"As long as we signed an agreement, we'll live up to it," he said. "We just want to make sure we understand what's in it."
Saltz declined to comment on whether the company plans overtures to gun owners, and referred questions to Scott, who did not return a phone message left by The
Associated Press. * * *
[Should S&W seek to make peace with gun owners] ... that could backfire too, and other analysts say that while Smith & Wesson must return to gun owners' fold, it can't sacrifice its reputation as "the good gun company."
Even if it successfully fends off the lawsuits that remain while building the trust of customers, Smith & Wesson still faces an uphill climb in a flat industry. * * *