Bobshouse, I certainly respect that point of view, but as long as people keep asking I'm going to keep answering.
Smith is already part of the agreement and it is already in effect. It isn't currently being enforced by the Bush administration, but it's a legally binding contract between Smith and Wesson and the Federal Government, and anytime a new government decides to enforce it, they can. It's sort of like a cop enforcing a law--he has discretion as to whether he enforces the law in every case, but that doesn't nullify the law. It's still there, and if the next cop uses his discretion differently, that's too bad.
The agreement was essentially forced on Smith--the idea was to force it onto all the manufacturers, but in the end, only Smith signed. The antis have been initiating lawsuits on behalf of city, county, state and federal governments against gun makers for years. Most have now been thrown out of court for the trash they are, but it costs money to defend against them. HUD offered manufacturers a chance to settle the lawsuits, and Smith took it. As part of the settlement, they negotiated this agreement and signed it.
The provisions of the settlement are not technically new federal laws; they're the next best thing. The terms are part of a contract between Smith and the Government, and the contract is enforced by the government. Smith has to follow the terms or they're in deep trouble, the kind they might not get out of with the company intact. The Government has to follow them too, but there's not one term in that contract that benefits Smith or doesn't benefit the government, so that's not hard. The part that really burns people is that Smith didn't just agree to what their actions would be--they agreed to what the dealers and distributors would do as well, without consulting any of them. The dealers and distributors don't have to abide by the agreement--as long as they never sell another Smith and Wesson. If they sell one new Smith while not following the agreement to the letter, they're screwed. This is even worse when you consider that the idea was to have all the manufacturers forced into the same pact. I believe it was the threat of a boycott that kept Glock and some others out of it, but of course that's my opinion. Had all the manufacturers or even most signed, we'd have had a de facto ban on pre-ban full-capacity magazines, minors entering gunstores, sale of "assault weapons" that are perfectly legal. All those things would still be perfectly legal, so there wouldn't even be a law to repeal--but it WOULD be illegal for the manufacturers to sell any dealer who did them a single gun, because they'd have signed a legal contract not to do so. Do we all begin to see how insidious all this is?
Preemption laws would have no effect on the agreement. It's not legislation, but an agreement between a manufacturer and the government. If the idea is to make it illegal, well, it's already illegal under anti-trust and restraint-of-trade laws, except, as I understand it, that the government can do no wrong in those areas so the law won't be enforced. Nice, huh?
The reason more dealers aren't boycotting is that way too many dealers think the agreement is gone since it's not currently being enforced. Of course, a lot could happen between now and 2004. The looks on their faces will be interesting if, say, Al Gore comes roaring back (he's a loser and Bush is popular--right now--but he has history on his side.) Some, like Will's dealer, even think the agreement has been rescinded officially--but don't you think that would be public knowledge? A lot of others just plain don't care. They don't really believe anyone wants to put them out of business, or they think they have the money and manpower to live by the agreement while others go out of business and their market share increases, or they don't expect to be in the gun business five years from now.
