Gun Makers Saw No Role in Curbing Improper Sales

[Scuba]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/us/gun-makers-shun-responsibility-for-sales-suits-show.html?_r=0

The president of Sturm, Ruger was not interested in knowing how often the police traced guns back to the company’s distributors, saying it “wouldn’t show us anything.”

And a top executive for Taurus International said his company made no attempt to learn if dealers who sell its products were involved in gun trafficking on the black market. “I don’t even know what a gun trafficker is,” he said.

...

The executives claimed not to know if their guns had ever been used in a crime. They eschewed voluntary measures to lessen the risk of them falling into the wrong hands. And they denied that common danger signs — like a single person buying many guns at once or numerous “crime guns” that are traced to the same dealer — necessarily meant anything at all.

Charles Brown’s company, MKS Supply, is the sole distributor of an inexpensive brand of gun that frequently turned up in criminal investigations. He said he never examined the trace requests that MKS received from federal agents to learn which of his dealers sold the most crime guns. This lack of interest was echoed by Charles Guevremont, the president of the gun manufacturer Browning, who testified that his company would have no reason to review the practices of a dealer who was the subject of numerous trace requests.
That’s not for us to enforce the law,” Mr. Guevremont said.

I'll bet they know a great deal about their costs, margins, P-E ratios, and total revenue.

[xchrom]

1. du rec.

[pipoman]

2. Trying to figure out how this is supposed to work..

And a top executive for Taurus International said his company made no attempt to learn if dealers who sell its products were involved in gun trafficking on the black market.

How is the manufacturer supposed to do this? Manufacturers sell to Federal Firearms Licensees. If the FFL is "involved in gun trafficking on the black market", they are obviously doing so illegally. Until the FFL is caught by law enforcement, what resources are available to the manufacturer? And if the FFL is caught, they aren't a FFL any longer, thus not eligible to buy firearms from the manufacturer. The day the FFL is busted, the BATFE would seize the FFL records which would show who they are buying from and those sellers would be notified of the status of the FFL. Law enforcement is for law enforcement.

Oh, and to further complicate it..many small gun shops buy from wholesale distributors rather than direct from the manufacturer..

[phantom power]

4. It was working for Smith and Wesson. Too well, apparently:

Only one major company, Smith & Wesson, the nation’s largest handgun manufacturer, broke ranks. In 2000, it agreed to settle the litigation, and it adopted a number of far-reaching changes, including promising to design a handgun that could not be operated by children and forbidding its dealers and distributors from selling at gun shows unless background checks were conducted on all sales.

Smith & Wesson’s sales quickly plummeted amid an industry backlash. Documents produced through the discovery process in the municipal suits show other gun makers seeking to isolate the company. A letter from Dwight Van Brunt, an executive at Kimber America, a gun maker, to top officials at a firearms industry trade group urged them to confer with the N.R.A. and “boycott Smith now and forever. Run them out of the country.”

“You guys need to make sure that no one else is going to join the surrender,” Mr. Van Brunt wrote.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/28/us/gun-makers-shun-responsibility-for-sales-suits-show.html?pagewanted=3&hp

[pipoman]

5. Yeah, it was silly..

forbidding its dealers and distributors from selling at gun shows unless background checks were conducted on all sales.

They didn't have to do that since the government already does (forbid firearm dealers and distributors from selling at gun shows or anywhere else without a background check)..it is laughable..

What really hurt S&W was their installation of an internal lock..the child proof thing which absolutely nobody uses and which, early on, had reports of malfunctioning locking the gun unintentionally..people didn't feel they could trust the smith product when they may need it the most, so quit buying them..another silly ineffective remedy to appease others which alienated their customers..

[phantom power]

3. “I don’t even know what a gun trafficker is”