driftrider

Thanks for overgeneralizing and lumping lawful gun owners with the scumbags that illegally use guns to commit crimes. Blaming the innocent for the acts of the guilty is typical leftist thinking.

You're probably right about the reasons that the S&W leadership did what they did, but that doesn't excuse them for doing it. For your information, all of us do not support our overly litigious society, which is evident from the fact that many of us don't excuse S&W's actions just because their lawyers told them to. Also, in case you haven't noticed, recent strong efforts have been made to reform tort law and prevent the ambulance chasing lawyers and activist judges (where the real blame lies, not that a left-thinking individual like yourself really cares about who is really to blame).

A business trying to protect its interests by selling out their constituantcy? Hmm, doesn't seem like thats good for the customers, investors, or the company to me. And now S&W is paying the price for their assumption that their gun-owning customers wouldn't mind if they sided with anti-gun politicians. You must have gone to a different business school than I did; one that taught that corporate suicide was a good business strategy. The way I see it, if S&W can sell out gun-owners to the most anti-gun president in history, then it's the gun-owners right (and responsibility) to make that company pay for their actions by not buying their products. Like I said above, apparently it's working because no other gun company followed suit despite considerable pressure from the Clinton administration and threats of legal action.

No, we don't. The anti-gun forces and their political representatives have proven time and again that if we give them the proverbial inch, they'll take a mile. No responsible gun owner endorses the violent acts that criminals commit with guns, but the laws necessary to prosecute the criminals have been in place in this country for 230+ years. What we lack is adequate prosecution and incarceration for those who break these laws. More gun control laws won't end the violence on the street, because the armed criminal has no respect for the laws he's breaking in the first place, both the old and new ones. The only people who obey and suffer from gun control are the law abiding gun owners that do comply with the law. The only people to benefit from "responsible gun laws" are the criminals, because these laws disarm only the victims.

No, we don't stick our head in the sand. In fact, the S&W boycott is a fine example of gun owners acting in the interests of preserving their freedom. I challenge you to specify one gun control law that actually reduces crime or protects people from victimization.

Then we can hold you responsible when the BATF starts confiscating banned guns from gun owners who have never harm another soul who were victims of their own "compromise", all the while improving the job safety rating of armed felons. I once again challenge you to find one "reasonable" gun control law that hasn't been around for decades already that actually reduces gun violence. I don't think that you'll find one that. Laws that target and effect only lawful citizens don't reduce crime, because lawful citizens don't, by definition, commit such crimes. Vigorous prosecution and harsh punishment, as well a healthy and well deserved fear that their victim may be armed, are the only real deterrents for violent criminals. All the laws we need to accomplish the former have been around for decades or centuries. The latter are finally becoming more and more common as people and their elected state representatives realize that the victim has the right and therefore deserves to possess the ability to defend themselves, and that empowering the victims is the best way to prevent violent crime, and have thus enacted shall-issue concealed carry laws that allow lawful citizens to arm themselves. Of course, you won't find CCW laws on the anti-gunners "reasonable" gun safety law wish-list, but they have been the only ones that have proven to actually accomplish their intended goal.

Oh, and to touch on the purpose of the 2nd Amendment...it has NOTHING TO DO WITH GUN OWNERSHIP AS A HOBBY!!! The 2nd Amendment exists to guarantee us our God-given (inalienable) right to control and protect ourselves from both foreign aggressors AND from the tyranny of our own government. The 2nd Amd. wasn't meant to protect your right to hunt deer with a your .30-30, but rather to provide the citizens the means to secure their own liberties against a corrupt and determined government by force if necessary. The Founders knew from experience that the threat of armed insurrection, and rebellion if necessary, was the only sure means of preserving liberty, and THAT ALONE is the purpose of the 2nd Amendment. The recreational use of firearms is mearly a pleasant biproduct of the original intent of the amendment.

I think that you need to pick whose side you're really on. If we don't draw the line in the sand and stand our ground, it is WE that will lose our rights to protect ourselves and our liberty and become little more than slaves of the government we can no longer control.

Here's a PDF document that you should download and read in its entirety. Once you do, come back and tell us what you think about the "reasonable gun safety" laws that are slowly destroying our freedom while doing NOTHING to protect us.

http://www.keepandbeararms.com/images/gunfacts.pdf

And here's another essay you should read:

http://www.rkba.org./comment/cowards.html

And another:

http://www.rachellucas.com/archives/000218.html#000218

Mike