Smith & Wesson president and CEO Mark Smith released a statement Monday pushing back against House Democrats, noting that “a Smith & Wesson firearm has never broken into a home.”
Smith’s statement comes just weeks after Daniel Defense CEO Marty Daniel and Sturm, Ruger, and Co. CEO Christopher Killoy testified before a House Oversight Committee hearing as Democrats criticized firearm makers’ marketing tactics and profits.
Highlights of the hearing included Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL) asking Ruger to agree not to sell certain types of ammunition, to which Ruger CEO Killoy responded, “We do not sell ammunition.”
At another point in the hearing, Committee chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) claimed gun manufacturers “sell the weapons of choice to mass murderers.”
But Breitbart News pointed out that gun manufacturers do not sell guns to individuals, They sell guns to wholesalers and distributors, who, in turn, sell them to federally licensed dealers, who, in turn, sell them to citizens who pass a federal background check.
And the Associated Press emerged from the Committee hearing aghast that gun makers make profits off firearm sales.
Smith & Wesson declined the invite to testify before the committee.
However, company CEO Smith released a statement Monday that “politicians and their lobbying partners in the media” have criticized Smith & Wesson for years.
Smith then alluded to Democrats’ anti-police policies, saying, “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 & Wesson and other firearm manufacturers are somehow responsible for the crime wave that has predictably resulted from these destructive policies.”
He then pointed to the reality in America that heavily gun-controlled, Democrat-run cities are often most dangerous:
It is no surprise that the cities suffering most from violent crime are the very same cities that have promoted irresponsible, soft-on-crime policies that often treat criminals as victims and victims as criminals. Many of these same cities also maintain the strictest gun laws in the nation. But rather than confront the failure of their policies, certain politicians have sought more laws restricting the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens, while simultaneously continuing to undermine our institutions of law and order. And to suppress the truth, some now seek to prohibit firearm manufacturers and supporters of the Second Amendment from advertising products in a manner designed to remind law-abiding citizens that they have a Constitutional right to bear arms in defense of themselves and their families.
Smith then pointed out that guns do not commit crimes, rather, people do: “To be clear, a Smith & Wesson firearm has never broken into a home, a Smith & Wesson firearm has never assaulted a woman out for a late-night run in the city, a Smith & Wesson firearm has never carjacked an unsuspecting driver stopped at a traffic light.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.