ORIGINAL: Briman
A Saturday Night Special is a gun that was made by couple of different companies... but the one that comes to mind is Harrington and Richardson (thats right... single shot H&R/NEF). They were revolvers, short/snub nose, in a variety of calibers. The thing that made them "special" was that they were made out of cheap pot-metal. The metal was of such poor quality infact, that you could actually melt the gun into a puddle with nothing more than a hot burning gas stove-top... just like melting lead. The danger of this, of course, from a law enforcement standpoint is it makes getting rid of the murder weapon a downright simple operation. They are not illegal to have, as I understand it, but the few that came into the gunshop were quickly sent off with the owner as an FFL is not allowed to be in possession of one. So the story goes anyway.... might be outright illegal... who knows. But thats what makes a Saturday night Special... "Special".
None of the above is even remotely true^^
There are several FFLs near me that have Ravens, Lorcins, Jennings, h&rs etc for sale- all are low quality guns. IIRC a fe,w of the listed companies were either sud out of existance or were shut down because of illegal dealing and/or theft by employees that sold them to criminals. Before these companies were around, there were several other companies dating back to before the turn of the century that made cheap pistols. The most modern rendition of what might be described as a saturday night special are High Point pistols- cheap construction and more importantly to politicians and other fear mongers- cheap price.
I'm sure that your historical look at it is right on Briman, and I and everyone else have no doubt enjoyed the history lesson... but believe me when I tell you that no FFL holder who wants to keep his license will have a pot-metal gun in his shop. What I referred to is what the feds and gun auditors define as a "saturday night special". Could well be that they were the one's bastardizing the otherwise racial slur???