I figure that if we hold grudges too long we will just be hurting our own interests as shooters and hunters.
Or perhaps the opposite is true.
Maybe if we held the grudge forever it would send a crystal clear message to the other firearms makers that they ought not ever consider selling out their customers for political purposes ever again. I think the S&W thing has definately made the other manufacturers stand to and take notice, as no one else followed suit. The fact that S&W is still in business is testament to gun owner's general lack of resolve regarding the preservation of our firearms rights against all forms of assault, including assaults from within the very industry that is supposed to be our allies. When S&W shook Slick Willie's hand and aquiesed to his anti-gun politics, they used their free hand to reach around and stab gun owners in the back.
And given that neither the old or new leadership of S&W has publically apologized to their constituants and the rest of the gun industry for setting such a dangerous precident, I don't feel that they deserve to be forgiven just yet. And as for the issue of S&W being under new American ownership...well, that doesn't excuse the actions of the company's past unless the new leaders own up to the past mistakes, which they haven't. They just bought the company thinking that gun owners memories would remain as short as they'd always seem to been in the past and act like nothing bad happened.
In my book that just isn't good enough.
Mike