Smith & Wesson President and CEO Mark Smith has issued a bristling statement in response to a subpoena from the Democrat-controlled House Oversight and Reform Committee in which he ripped “a number of politicians and their lobbying partners in the media” for undermining law enforcement and then blaming the gun industry for rising crime.
“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 wrote, “Smith & Wesson and other firearm manufacturers are somehow responsible for the crime wave that has predictably resulted from these destructive policies. But they are the ones to blame for the surge in violence and lawlessness, and they seek to avoid any responsibility for the crisis of violence they have created by attempting to shift the blame to Smith & Wesson, other firearm manufacturers and law-abiding gun owners.”
Smith’s statement was applauded by Alan Gottlieb, founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation. In a prepared statement Tuesday, the veteran gun rights advocate suggested 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.”
The S&W executive’s statement came after attorney Mark Paoletta with Schaerr Jaffe LLP, representing the firearms company, sent a six-page response to Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney, chair of the Oversight Committee, who authorized the subpoena.
In his letter, transmitted Monday, Paoletta told Maloney, “the Committee’s focus on gathering specific revenue, profits, and units sold raises serious concerns of whether its work is intended to undermine the Second Amendment right to keep and bear firearms “in common use”—a category that includes MSRs (“modern sporting rifles”).”
The attorney also expressed concerns that the committee “is unfairly punishing my client for declining an invitation to participate in the hearing held by the Committee on July 27, 2022.”
He also wondered “why is it necessary for the Committee to know if Smith & Wesson’s revenues from the sale of MSRs were $150 million or $200 million, or whether Smith & Wesson sold 300,000 or 400,000 MSRs in FY 2021? In short, a specific number provided by a single industry member would not inform the Committee’s stated purpose, and Congress has no legitimate need for this level of specificity when considering legislation.”
So far, there has been no reaction from Maloney, known on Capitol Hill as a perennial anti-gunner.
