U.S.A. –-(AmmoLand.com)- The president and CEO of Smith & Wesson issued a scathing public statement in response to demands from the Democrat-controlled House Oversight Committee, which is seeking a considerable amount of sales and production information from the legendary gun company, and has issued a subpoena to get it.
S&W President Mark Smith posted his statement on the Smith & Wesson website, in which he accused “a number of politicians and their lobbying partners in the media” of disparaging his company and other gun manufacturers for rising violent crime in the U.S.
“Some have had the audacity to suggest that after they have vilified, undermined and defunded law enforcement for years, supported prosecutors who refuse to hold criminals accountable for their actions, overseen the decay of our country’s mental health infrastructure, and generally promoted a culture of lawlessness,” Smith stated.
His 440-word statement was applauded by the Second Amendment Foundation, where founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb observed, “We think Mark Smith speaks for the entire firearms community, from manufacturers on down to individual gun owners who are tired of being the whipping boys for congressional gun grabbers.”
Gottlieb ripped Congressional Democrats for using gun makers and gun owners as scapegoats “for their own ineptness in preventing crime and keeping our communities safe.” He likewise blasted the establishment media for helping perpetuate the notion that the gun industry and law-abiding firearms owners are to blame for skyrocketing crime.
“Beltway gun prohibitionists, supported by billionaire-backed gun control lobbying groups and their media lapdogs have endeavored to erode the Second Amendment with the ultimate goal of erasing it from the Bill of Rights,” Gottlieb stated. “They have demonized the firearms industry, firearms owners, the guns they own and the organizations that fight a daily battle in defense of the right to keep and bear arms. And they deny any responsibility for the crime wave their failed social policies have cultivated.
“In short,” Gottlieb added, “their collective moral compass is so dysfunctional the needle has twisted off the dial.”
Smith & Wesson’s response comes about three weeks after the House Oversight Committee, chaired by perennial anti-gun Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) held a hearing on so-called “gun violence” and the firearms industry. During that hearing, Maloney challenged the heads of two prominent firearms companies—Chris Killoy at Sturm, Ruger and Marty Daniel at Daniel Defense—to “accept responsibility” and apologize to victims of mass shootings and their families.” Ammoland News reported on the hearing at the time, describing Maloney’s effort as “a grandstand play (that) set the tone for the remainder of a contentious hearing during which Democrats repeatedly called modern semi-auto rifles ‘weapons of war’ while Republicans steadfastly defended private gun ownership.”
Because S&W’s Smith did not appear before the committee, the company has been subpoenaed to provide a considerable amount of information, which an attorney representing S&W wrote in a letter to Maloney in which he reminded the congresswoman, “My client has already provided information on its revenue and units sold related to MSRs consistent with the scope of the Committee’s investigation.”
Attorney Mark R. Paoletta, a partner in the Washington, DC law firm of Schaerr Jaffe LLC also noted in his six-page letter to Maloney, “The Committee’s very own actions show that it does not need this type of information to do its job. Based on the Committee’s actions, I believe the Committee is unfairly punishing my client for declining an invitation to participate in the hearing held by the Committee on July 27, 2022.”
S&W CEO Smith’s public statement was posted Monday on the company website, while Paoletta’s letter was sent to Maloney via electronic mail.
In his remarks, Smith clearly was putting blame for rising crime back where it belongs.
“It is no surprise that the cities suffering most from violent crime are the very same cities that have promoted irresponsible, soft-on-crime policies that often treat criminals as victims and victims as criminals,” Smith stated. “Many of these same cities also maintain the strictest gun laws in the nation. But rather than confront the failure of their policies, certain politicians have sought more laws restricting the 2nd Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens, while simultaneously continuing to undermine our institutions of law and order.”
As a firearms manufacturer, Smith & Wesson is an American icon, with a history dating back to the late 19th Century. It is one of the premier handgun manufacturers, not just in the U.S. but around the globe. Over the years, the company has delved into manufacturing shotguns and rifles—most recently with a line of modern semi-auto rifles—while maintaining its traditional handgun production, both revolvers and semi-autos.
But there is more to the growing hostility toward gunmakers from Capitol Hill, to which Smith specifically alluded in his statement.
“And to suppress the truth,” the gun company CEO said, “some now seek to prohibit firearm manufacturers and supporters of the 2nd Amendment from advertising products in a manner designed to remind law-abiding citizens that they have a Constitutional right to bear arms in defense of themselves and their families.”
Gun rights versus gun control is a major issue politically as the 2022 midterm elections loom Nov. 8. In the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in June that struck down New York’s law requiring proof of “good cause” in order to obtain a concealed carry permit, gun prohibitionists all but declared the sky is falling. The 6-3 decision, authored by veteran Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, provided legal language that may now be used by gun rights organizations such as SAF to challenge various state laws and earlier court rulings that had been based on an entirely-manufactured “two step” approach in dealing with Second Amendment issues.
In tearing down the two-step approach, Justice Thomas wrote, “Despite the popularity of this two-step approach, it is one step too many. Step one of the predominant framework is broadly consistent with Heller, which demands a test rooted in the Second Amendment’s text, as informed by history. But Heller and McDonald do not support applying means-end scrutiny in the Second Amendment context. Instead, the government must affirmatively prove that its firearms regulation is part of the historical tradition that delimits the outer bounds of the right to keep and bear arms.”
The high court’s ruling infuriated Capitol Hill anti-gunners, which may have precipitated the Oversight Committee hearing, which was clearly aimed at holding the gun industry responsible for violent gun-related crimes, especially mass shootings.
But Smith’s public statement was defiant:
“We will continue to work alongside law enforcement, community leaders and lawmakers who are genuinely interested in creating safe neighborhoods. We will engage those who genuinely seek productive discussions, not a means of scoring political points. We will continue informing law-abiding citizens that they have a Constitutionally-protected right to defend themselves and their families. We will never back down in our defense of the 2nd Amendment.”
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About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
We need EVERY manufacturer of guns & ammo to tell the feds, commiecrats & RINOs to go fornicate themselves – and then refuse to sell to the government!! STAND UNITED OR FALL ALONE!!
They won’t. Their industry rep NSSF is all about making bank by smoking their “federal partner’s” shlongs.
Mark Smith I applaud your actions and statements to congress I remain a devoted customer. “Nice to have a pair of balls”
I think Mark Smith figured out if you dont stand up to a bully and give them a bloody lip, you will be under control until you do stand up….we all need to give them a bloody lip…need to get people to boo out the likes of plosi
Soon it will be the American people who will need to stand up to those elected that are destroying our nation
It’s nice to see that S&W got their balls back. If you remember, they were the first to knuckle under to Clinton’s gun control BS during his term. That being said, they make great firearms. I have several of theirs and looking at another for a PD weapon for hunting.
Americans need to grow a pair quickly we have way too many winners and crybabies. Racial hatred by young sanctuary city colored people. That poor women on the bus that was beaten for being white in NY repeatedly those 3 black girls will be charged with a hate crime as juveniles. Or the women arrested 151 times in a row in NYC back to her drugs and harassing hard working people entering their building , The list is long the worst of the worst is those in elected offices in washington dc criminals with the fear of justice hang over… Read more »
It needs to be widely understood what the CAUSE is of the violence and mass shootings. This is the CAUSE. https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/07/mark-reynolds/the-ssri-connection-to-suicides-spontaneous-murder-and-mass-shootings/
We also have to remember that mass murder spree in 1964. https://gunmagwarehouse.com/blog/stephen-hunter-the-assault-weapon-massacres-of-1964/ You know, back when you could buy a rifle out of a Sears Catalog and the post man would drop it off at your door. And those hundreds of thousands of “assault rifles” that the Federal government and the NRA sold to people…
Correlations does not equal causality. While some shooters are taking medication in an attempt to treat depression, placing the blame on the medication is at best a strawman fallacy as it ignores the purpose of the medication itself… to treat the underlying depression. An extremely small percentage of those taking SSRI’s may have extreme adverse effects, but these side effects are not irrefutably linked to homicidal outbursts nor do they account for the vast majority of violence committed with a firearm which is criminal on criminal violence. If the medication were to blame then we would be seeing a massive… Read more »
That’s the way it’s supposed to be, but they handout that stuff to moderate activity in the classroom. Many of the teachers are not qualified or have enough patience to do their job correctly, so take the little pill, sit down and be a good boy.
There’s the problem right there. Folks that are unqualified to be a teacher are playing doctor/pharmacist. You cannot deny that in your apologist post for big pharma.
The medication is widely over prescribed by people who have no business prescribing anything.
Re: your first response. No apologist post here, just simple fact. Increased serotonin levels (what SSRI’s do in the body by reducing the reabsorption of serotonin, thus allowing for more to be present) do not induce, create, highten, or enhance homicidal thoughts or actions without an underlying issue. In fact increased serotonin levels do the opposite as outlined in many studies. Here’s just one for example https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25924230/ We definitely agree that they are over prescribed. Medications are often used as a fix rather than a single tool in the step towards effective mental health treatment. But their presence in those… Read more »
Agreed. However, the drug connection is always short shifted when going back all the way to Columbine, and until we start looking at everything involved with the same zeal as they look at the scary black tool, there will never be a resolution to this problem. Yes, yes, yes we need a major focus on mental health facilities.
It is opposite of compassion doing what has been done to the mentally deficient in this Country for far, far too long.
You are very right, it is always short shifted. My question is based more upon what causes it rather than their presence. We know that these shootings are a symptom of societal decay. We fight against the banners who want to diminish, if not outright remove, the right to keep and bear arms and tell them the firearm is merely the too and not the cause. So when I see medications demonized in the same way I have to apply the same argument… it is simply a tool and the actual CAUSE is being swept under the rug. Mental health… Read more »
Do a bit more research outside of Mad Magazine. The MEDICATION is the PROBLEM. PERIOD. NO DOUBT ABOUT IT! I’ve got book after book after book on the subject. REALITY 101…DOCTORS are PRACTICING on you. Get that? PRACTICING. They don’t know shit about the human brain in the end result. You can’t give a pill to everyone and expect the same exact result unless everyone is exactly the same. It’s like the new SADS…Sudden Adult Death Syndrome. IS IT THE VACCINE? Correlations does not equal causality???????? So all of a sudden HUNDREDS, no THOUSANDS of adults with no apparent health… Read more »
I originally posted a thoughtful rebuttal… then I reread your post.
Practice?
Have a good day CourageousLion!
“For every complex problem, there’s a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.” H.L. Mencken
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25924230/ Just a simple “fact”. Yeah, lies and coverup of the truth. Read Peter Breggin’s book as well as others and see if you are still such a supporter of these poisons. Here is one for you…In 2001 attorney Andy Vickery of Houston Texas went to trial against GlaxoSmithKline in a Paxil product liability lawsuit in which Dr. Breggin was not involved with. Sixty year old Donald Schell suffered from an episode of depression but had never before been violent or suicidal. After taking TWO DOSES of Paxil, Donald went on a murderous rampage killing his wife, his daughter and… Read more »
Are we to utilize litigation as evidence now? Please be careful as that is the same exact thing that banners are attempting to push as “evidence” against firearm manufacturers. Litigate the manufacturer because if they didn’t make them there wouldn’t be firearms in the eyes of the banners. We all know that litigation is settled out of court disproportionately to guilt or innocence, especially when it comes to a business… it is good business practice to settle rather than publicly fight even if innocent of the accusation. This does not mean guilt, which last I checked was the purview of… Read more »
Teacher bitches about little Johnny having ants in his pants. Principle tells Johnny’s mommy to see a shrink. Shrink is an idiot trained by the same people that sell the drugs. Shrink prescribes for Johnny a mind altering drug that works like some illegal ones. Johnny goes bonkers, shoots daddy, takes daddy’s gun to school, shoots the teacher, 20 other students and then himself but naaaaaaaa…the drugs had NOTHING TO DO WITH IT! it was the gun he stole from his dad he murdered.
Really? I disagree. I believe the financial incentive of the FDA and medical mafia is the issue. I’ve been studying up on this and currently am in the middle of a book by Peter R Breggin MD. who is a psychiatrist and EXPERT in clinical psychopharmacology. He’s a former teaching fellow at Harvard Medical School and a full time consultant at the National Institute of Mental Health. He has written DOZENS of scientific articles and more than TWENTY books including the best sellers TOXIC PSYCHIATRY and TALKING BACK TO PROZAC. He has served as a medical expert in criminal cases… Read more »
The thing with peer reviewed studies, as well as independent studies, is that there are more than enough on both sides to support the issue. While my degrees are not in the psychiatric field or pharmaceutical fields, they are closely related in biochemistry and microbiology. Maybe it would be more appropriate to label me as miseducated. Though decades of researching vast amounts of data due to personal observation of immediate family on SSRI’s as well as my own decade of previous use does lend enough insight to render “un-educated” underwhelming as well. I never claimed to be an expert in… Read more »
One the front cover of the book I mentioned Medication Madness it says how MILLIONS of doses of these drugs are given out to the public. Let’s say that they “work” for 99.9 per cent but it causes the other .1 per cent to do awful things like after two doses shoot your wife, daughter and grand daughter and then yourself. Now take that .1 percent of a million and how many people are at issue. Now multiply that by MILLIONS more and how many are at issue? My calculation says that 10,000 people out of every million taking the… Read more »
“An extremely small % of those taking SSRI’s may have extreme adverse effects…If the medication were to blame then we’d be seeing a massive amount of shootings”
Big Pharma sophistry. Correlation is not necessarily causation. It only takes a small % having extreme reactions to create a massive amount of shootings compared to the 1950s, before abusive parents, MDs & schools began psych-drugging kids for made-up diseases like ADD that used to be called childhood.
According to statistics there are 11 mass shootings a WEEK in the USA these days. I’d call that a massive amount of shootings. A mass shooting is defined as an incident where four or more people are shot. So far this year, the numbers average out to 11 mass shootings per week. 2021 saw a total of 692 mass shootings throughout the year. Year 2022, just the first six months: – January: 41 mass shootings, 59 dead, 128 wounded February: 43 mass shootings, 40 dead, 174 wounded March: 52 mass shootings, 47 dead, 217 wounded- April: 66 mass shootings, 75… Read more »
the drugs are working…..making people crazy
god I thought add was what they taught in math ADD nice summer day fish are calling
There’s enough evidence connecting SSRI drugs to almost every if not every mass shooting that a blind man could see it. Yet our “betters” fail to see or address the issue. 2 groups will not allow it…
Teachers Union
Big Pharma
The cause of most of the societal decay can be laid at the feet of American teachers. It all starts there.
I have come to the conclusion that all teachers are suspect. Unless you’re a teacher pushing back and refusing to adhere to the communists agenda, you teacher, are the damn problem.
I believe it starts at home, Proper Parenting.
Yet sometimes people just want to watch the world burn 🙁
Are you somehow suggesting these kids are my responsibility ? Or anyone else ? I’m not quite sure what your comment is getting at.
Not sure how one would infer that. But no, I am not suggesting that responsibility for these kids should be shouldered by anyone other than those directly responsible through parentage or legal assumption.
My statement was a not so eloquent way of saying that sometimes evil exists for no reason.
Oh, there is a reason…https://courageouslion380.substack.com/p/problem-psychopathic-control-freaks
it is called government
nukes or napalm?
Drugging kids is a failure of parenting.
drugging kids is because the stopped Quaalude s parent does not have happy pill zone the kids out…better not let stupid un involved people procreate
I’ve often said…10th Plank
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2022/06/mark-reynolds/list-of-45-different-murders-and-pharma-drugs-they-were-on/ The ones that they don’t know about they have kept from the public because they are protecting the legalized drug pushers. Like Uvaldi. No one knows if the Ramos was or was not on drugs. A relative claims he was. But there is no evidence from a reliable source. I suspect, yes, he was. He LOOKS like he was!
Pills are NOT the root of the problem. Take a hard look t the FAMILY STRUCTURE of those who have gone out and killed. The vast majoirty of them grew up in homes where there was no functioning Father figure.
Welfare programmes promote this by paying more money for more children, as long as there is no Father in the home. Many neighbourhoods are more like tue “puppy mills” the libruls are down on. But those same ones support and promote “kiddie mills” supported by “welfare”. Been a problem for nigh on to forty years now.
You may be right. Bad living conditions are the start, the pills are the end result and what comes with them. I suspect that most people that take anti-depressants are depressed for SOME reason.
look at all the psychoactive drugs they give kids permanent brain damage
Hmm, curious. I said virtually the same thing but must have worded it wrong.
Looks like I will be purchasing a Smith & Wesson product in the near future.
Good for Smith and Wesson!! Now stop selling products to police agencies in states that restrict magazine capacity. Stop selling firearms to state agencies where their products are prohibited such as Massachusetts, California, etc.
Very nice article Dave. Thank you
Sooooo……if S&W has FINALLY found their balls………..
How about not selling your ptoducts to restrictive states and agencies seeking to deny the constitution to their citizens.
How about you stop arming the agancies seeking to red flag your customers.
how about you stop selling products to police and agencies that your citizen customers are unconstitutionally prohibited from.
DO NOT SELL NOTHING TO THE NEW 87,000 gestapo (irs) JBT’s
TIME to pick a side.
Will S &W be the armorer for Deep state totalitarian communists or AMERICAN CITIZENS?
I praise Smith& Wesson for their stance on taking on the Demorats in Washington. I already own four S&W guns and I’m sure that given the assholes in DC I will own more. I’m not as prolific in writing comments as some of you are but as a Vietnam vet I stand for my country & its beliefs. I will never surrender my firearms. EVER!!!
S&W shows us, it’s time to stand and be heard – now brothers and sisters let these Marxist bastards know how wrong they are!!!
In the broader context of the issue at hand is simply this: we are in an existential battle for survival against the Marxists of the Progressive New Left. In that contest one side will dominate and the other will be crushed. Think about the impending creation of the Lois Lerner Legion, 87,000 new armed IRS agents all primed to go after NRA Foundation and 2AF donors. Someone is not leaving the OK Coral alive. This long war declared in 1974 by the former Weather Underground is not reaching its terminal stages. Gone are the discussions, the negotiations and the compromises… Read more »
I hope no one thinks that those intent on disarming us give a flying sh*t about Mr. Smith’s letter. They don’t. They’d wipe their asses with it if they thought it would work better than Charmin. Attempting to reason with those that are exclusively unreasonable is a waste of time & energy.
quote: “using gun makers and gun owners as scapegoats “for their own ineptness in preventing crime and keeping our communities safe” Wrong, right out of the gate. It is NOT assigned to government to be “preventing crime and keeping our communities safe”. That is MY job, not theirs. THEIR job is to assure that MY RIGHTS are protected. Once that is in place, then it falls upon ME to see to my own security. I can do that as an individual, or in concert with others, including my community. But it is NOT the job lf “lawmakers” to keep me… Read more »
Well put.
What s&w makes is none of this committee’s business they aren’t the IRS they are only anti-gun people trying to put the blame on manufacturers while ignoring the bad policies democrats have put in place.
Bait and switch is as old as the hills and that is what this looks like.
So what is accusing the Dems of is the same thing the GOP has done; but since they have not asked S&W for anything it is cool for them to do it.
Protecting our 2A rights means you are not a friend of either party.
Now go enjoy using your Bump-stock before you attack me
Would you have expected Mark Smith to write such a letter during Trump’s administration? Sad as trump’s bump stock ban was/is – it did not directly impact S&W. Had he written in opposition to trump he would likely have offended a large portion of companies customer base. Griping about democrats plays well to his customers.
Don’t think so, but this letter could have been written by crafty public relations crew to boost S&W’s cred with gun buyers. But judging by reactions I’ve seen elsewhere it seems to be working. Remains to be seen how that translates to sales.
Means nothing without follow up action.
I’ll believe him when they…..
I still remember their deal with.gov in 2000
Per Fletcher; “don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining”
Are you high again?
No my friend – I think he’s pretty low.