My mom won't quit bitching @ me to get a job....
I've drained but achin' for more, & devil inside is reading
the words to the saddest poem, to be engraved in the stone on my grave
In 1852 partners Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson formed a company to produce a lever-action pistol nicknamed "The Volcanic". The company became known as the ""Volcanic Repeating Arms Company", and due to financial difficulties came into the majority ownership of investor Oliver Winchester.
In 1856 the partners left the Volcanic Company to begin a new company and to manufacture a newly-designed revolver-and-cartridge combination. The timing of the founding of this new company proved quite opportune for the partners, as the onset of the American Civil War five years later produced a great demand for Smith & Wesson's products.
In 1964 the company passed from Wesson family control, and subsequently a number of conglomerates took control of it.
During the mid-1980s, the company's long-standing dominance in the American police handgun market totally collapsed. This happened because American police forces switched from revolvers to semiautomatic pistols, while the company's semiautomatic pistols for police use had a bad reputation for unreliability both then and through the 1990s. Other foreign manufacturers, notably GLOCK, Beretta, and SIG, took virtually the entire American police handgun market during the 1980s.
From 1996 to 2001 Tomkins plc, a British company, owned Smith & Wesson.
In March 2000 Smith & Wesson signed an agreement with the Clinton administration in order to avoid lawsuits. The company agreed to a number of safety and design standards, as well as limits on the sale and distribution of their products. Gun clubs and gun rights groups responded to this agreement almost instantly by initiating large-scale boycotts of Smith & Wesson by refusing to buy their new products and flooding the firearms market with used S&W guns to cut into their market share. In 2001, when the company changed hands to a group of American investors, most customers returned, as the agreement involved Tomkins rather than Smith & Wesson. However, many continue the boycott today.
the words to the saddest poem, to be engraved in the stone on my grave
In 1852 partners Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson formed a company to produce a lever-action pistol nicknamed "The Volcanic". The company became known as the ""Volcanic Repeating Arms Company", and due to financial difficulties came into the majority ownership of investor Oliver Winchester.
In 1856 the partners left the Volcanic Company to begin a new company and to manufacture a newly-designed revolver-and-cartridge combination. The timing of the founding of this new company proved quite opportune for the partners, as the onset of the American Civil War five years later produced a great demand for Smith & Wesson's products.
In 1964 the company passed from Wesson family control, and subsequently a number of conglomerates took control of it.
During the mid-1980s, the company's long-standing dominance in the American police handgun market totally collapsed. This happened because American police forces switched from revolvers to semiautomatic pistols, while the company's semiautomatic pistols for police use had a bad reputation for unreliability both then and through the 1990s. Other foreign manufacturers, notably GLOCK, Beretta, and SIG, took virtually the entire American police handgun market during the 1980s.
From 1996 to 2001 Tomkins plc, a British company, owned Smith & Wesson.
In March 2000 Smith & Wesson signed an agreement with the Clinton administration in order to avoid lawsuits. The company agreed to a number of safety and design standards, as well as limits on the sale and distribution of their products. Gun clubs and gun rights groups responded to this agreement almost instantly by initiating large-scale boycotts of Smith & Wesson by refusing to buy their new products and flooding the firearms market with used S&W guns to cut into their market share. In 2001, when the company changed hands to a group of American investors, most customers returned, as the agreement involved Tomkins rather than Smith & Wesson. However, many continue the boycott today.