Saf-T-Hammer = Nothing New = Same Old S&W

[Cheapo]

A few rambling thoughts:

"A well-regulated militia" is the JUSTIFICATION for the Government to protect a right that ALREADY EXISTS--to keep and bear arms. Arms are a necessary extension of both the right to life, and the right to liberty.

Please note that the Constitution PROTECTS rights from Government infringement. It is equally wrong for a private entity to crimp your pre-existing rights, but it is not Constitutionally actionable.

These are all rights that we have, whether or not there is any government around to recognize or vindicate them.

For example, we have certain implicit rights to privacy which are protected by the 4th Amendment. Are your Constitutional rights infringed when your private-sector employer unreasonably searches your person, papers, etc., or unreasonably siezes you? YES!! Your rights are violated, but the Constitution does not protect you from that employer. And since we can sue employers for false arrest and a few limited invasions of privacy, then why not for futzing with our rights to have lethal force available to protect ourselves from Postal workers?

Convince the Trial Lawyers lobby that such lawsuits are a good idea, and see how little time it takes for them to cook up legal theories to support that type of lawsuit!

The futility of the fight as applied to S&W does NOT convince me that futility is a valid reason to cancel the boycott. I see no value in preserving the economic viability of a company that seeks to undermine the exercise of Constitutional rights by contractually giving them away and agreeing to recruit other private entities to sign on to enforce those onerous restrictions. That's like arguing to keep Yugo in business because we all like cars--what if Yugo makes such junk that they don't deserve to clutter the market with dangerous products?

Until the agreement is nixed, S&W is useless to our cause. They are NOT an ally just because they make guns.

The boycott is justified as a way to punish the wrongdoer and convince other manufacturers to NOT follow that same treacherous path. Market forces, fellow shooters! The market MUST reward proper behavior. Otherwise, we just become whores to quality products.

"Here, Mr. Stalin, thank you for baking such good bread and selling it at a price I can afford." Ka-ching! "Here''s your change, Komrade."

Pause.

Click. BANG!

You see what I'm getting at? Buying S&W when they still leave the agreement alive is only strengthening our enemies. I have no desire to strengthen Stalin while he prepares to purge his next batch of so-called "undesireables."

It took federal statutes based upon the flimsy thread of interstate commerce to make it illegal for restaurants to discriminate against minorities. Private action in violation of some protected Constititional rights is now illegal. But private action keeping blacks out of ritzy neighborhoods was long "justified" because it was just based on contractual agreements such as restrictive covenants on real estate sales.

Thus, I reject defenses of the Agreement based on the idea that it's just a contract between S&W and the Government entities. It limits S&W sales to dealers who also agree to its terms. Sorry, bud, but I find that just as outrageous as property covenants and country club rules that ban minorities from receiving equal treatment.

The agreement is just plain wrong. The manufacturers who fight tooth and nail against the inevitable government desire to aggregate power and subjugate citizens will not only get money from sales, they will eventually get money donated to legal defense funds if it ever gets that bad.

Some fights are best fought to the death. This is one. If you insist on buying new-production S&W before they renounce the Agreement, then I hold you in contempt.

And you'll deserve every bit of scorn that you will have EARNED!!

BTW, it also seems that most of those gunmaker lawsuits are losing on legal grounds anyway. Legal sales are too UNLIKE negligent entrustment situations to make even some small percentage of foreseeable CRIMINAL misuse of products a basis for tort liability. Look up "intervening, superseding" cause and you just might learn a few things.

The attorneys bringing these lawsuits are on the edge of ethical violations. The Tech 9 maker lost, but not for any sound legal reasons. The courts are beginning to work as they should.

The real danger still lies with the legislatures. They can create a statutory-based civil cause of action under these very same facts. Fighting THAT battle would be the really big one.

I support the boycott. All arguments against it ring hollow.

 

[AR-10]

Nicely put, Cheapo.

JayCee,

The gun industry has been around for over a century. My opinion is that it will not collapse if Smith and Wesson folds. All this blah blah blah about how tenuous a grip most manufacturers have on the future is just blah blah blah.

If you have any facts pertaining to the effects of the boycott to share we are listening. If you have want to make us all feel guilty about picking on poor old S&W, save your breath. If you have a sure-fire way of getting the attention of specific lawmakers who can help make the agreement go away, list names and tactics. As I have said before, I don't know what good it will do to petition the government to bail Smith out if Smith doesn't want the help.

Go out and tell your neighbors you like to shoot. Offer to take them with you. Try to spark a little interest in the shooting sports. Write your congressman. Write a letter to the editor. Read the agreement again. E-mail the owners of you-know-who and tell them to get with it.

I don't care if S&W makes another two years or not. Their product is constantly evolving, like all other manufacturers' products do. The venerable Smith of old is history. The Smith of today has to get off it's butt, on it's feet, produce a salable product, and dump the agreement. Or it will fail. If Smith folds, I'll buy their used products. If they negate the contract, I'll buy two new Smiths immediately. After that, they will have to stand up to the same scrutiny I would give any other brand before buying.

The major concern here is that the agreement is pole-axed before someone comes along with the inclination to enforce it. Any debate about the issue that does not focus on the merit of the demise of the agreement or the effect the contract would have on us when it is enforced is just smoke and mirrors.

 

[Zander]

"Ed Schultz made the decision unilaterally,..."

I've seen some naive statements in this thread, but this one gets the dunce award.

Shultz [the correct spelling, btw] got his marching orders from his British overlords. He cut a deal with the whores of the William Jefferson Blythe Clinton regime and lost his CEO position as a result.

Good riddance...and a pox on any company in the Tomkins Plc fold [one of which...Murray...was meant to be a place where the traitor could hide] which isn't sold forthwith to American investors who understand our markets.

Once agreeing to institute outright fascism in the American firearms industry, Shultz and his underlings were doomed...as was parent-company Tomkins, which lost more than $50 million on the sale to Safe-T-Hammer because of the boycott. Don't kid yourself...the boycott was responsible for the red coats' huge loss. Tough s&%t and good riddance!

"...the government will try this tactic again, since it's been proven to work successfully."

There isn't a shred of evidence that it was "successful"...and you can't cite a single datum to back your point.

And on that note, I've had it with your ad argumentum effort. To be blunt, you're wrong...and the facts prove so. Choose another subject on which to harangue...you're toast here.

 

[Quartus]

Nothing. I'm not sure how you came to that conclusion, since I clearly don't think that.

Hmmm. Maybe it was this:

but I hope you will also agree that it's not the only thing that needs to be done.

Which followed this:

Like our British and Australian compatriots, you may wake up one day to discover that your rights, which you thought inviolable, mysteriously disappeared while you were distracted.

Neither of which is anything like a reasonable inference from any post by any supporter of the boycott.

 

[JohnKSa]

The statement was: "The boycott (or even the bankruptcy) of s&w will not weaken the industry since it does not direct money out of the industry, but only directs it to other makers within the industry."

You replied:

Everything I’ve read indicates that, at least in the case of handguns, demand has dropped significantly.

Your reply is, perhaps, interesting, but irrelevant to the topic unless you're implying that the drop in demand for new handguns is a result of the s&w boycott.

 

[Silver Bullet]

According to the TFL home page, TFL has 10,935 registered members. There must be many other thousands of viewers who aren't registered. Judging by the posts, many of the folks here are extremely active in shooting and RKBA and in influence. Multiplying those nearly 11,000 members by all the people each member comes into contact with and influences, I would think this site reaches a sizable group of shooters and potential firearms buyers.

Anyone want to speculate why Saf-T-Hammer doesn't open a thread or respond on a thread like this one, presenting their position and intent on this issue ?

 

[Waitone]

S&W was a comparatively small and marginal profitability subsidiary of a foreign owned and operate company. Tomkins was looking to unload S&W long before the trial lawyers acted.

Clintoon legal goons chose the best target possible for legal extortion. They had very private, quite, intimate conversations with the management of both S&W and Tomkins. During these conversations Clintoon's goons explained what would happen when they began their legal work. (Once the plaintiff begins legal action the defendant has no choice but start spending money. It doesn't make any difference if the charges are legit or not.) S&W/Tomkins quickly consulted in-house legal types as well as outside counsel and determined the cost of litigation alone would destroy any profitability S&W may have enjoyed. What's worse, legal bills would then begin to drain the resources of Tomkins. All in all the cost of defending S&W against Clintoon Goons would rapidly be higher than S&W was worth. What's more, the longer they went in defending their position the less the value of company in the eyes of any possible suitor.

Typical of organized crime S&W was properly acquainted with the downside of fighting and at the same time introduced to the upside of caving. . . that being fat prefernetial contracts (illegal on its face). So the decision was made to cave into the goons.

Now that S&W were in bed together doing the nasty, the truly onerous provisions of the "deal" were developed. Bottom line the goons used the agreement as a lever to influence and dominate a relationship with other companies who did not sign the agreement. Specifically, the agreement dictated that if a distributor wanted to sell S&W products, all the terms, provisions, and restrictions that bound S&W to the agreement now bound all other manufacturers to the agreement. THIS IS IN DIRECT VIOLATION OF FEDERAL AND STATE LAW. In other words the Feds forced S&W to sign an agreement that was illegal (easy to do since it was civil suits that were originally filed). Two reasons for this provision: 1>if agreed to by other mfgs so much the better because it would effectively reduce the supply of guns in the market, 2>if not agreed to by other mfgs, it would isolate S&W from its customer base effectively making the company a wholey owned firearms mfg for the federal govt (we used to call that fascism).

For the agreement to die each and every party to the suit will have to abandon it or it will reappear when the next democrat shows up in the WH.

My position has not changed. S&W / Tomkins face complete financial ruin by fighting. By caving Tomkins bought time to find a buyer because they knew there would be negative results due to the reaction from a customer base. What they did not expect was the severity of the boycott. Tomkins is now free of S&W. S&W is now owned by another company (at a fire sale price).

Tomkins / S&W made precisely the correct business decision. Too bad the choice was a bullet in the head of the RKBA. Pro-Second amendments types made their point very clearly. The financial results after the agreements are nothing but disasterous. The company was eviserated.

I have to hand it to Clintoon's legal goons. Its good work, good strategy, and great implementation of a strategic plan. Mark my words, if the agreement isn't dissolved by all parties, it will reappear in the future and be used as a club against other manufacturers.

 

[Quartus]

Waitone, I'm not disagreeing with your analysis, but it doesn't really matter to me why they signed. What matters is the principles involved, and the results that will follow.

There is nothing that can excuse the agreement, and there is no middle ground on the agreement. It must die, even if that means taking down S&W forever.

It has been pointed out that BOTH parties to an agreement must agree to kill it. Not entirely true. If one is dead, and has no legal successor, that agreement is dead. We can't kill the Federal Government, but we CAN kill S&W.


That's a bad outcome, but the alternative is much worse.

It's that simple.