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While most gun owners respect everyone’s First Amendment rights as much as their Second Amendment rights, let’s face it, it doesn’t always work the other way around. In fact, as we’re seeing on a lot of college campuses in the United States right now, activism is often the work of spoiled people with too much time on their hands and little true understanding of what they are advocating for. In reality, they are quite simply: annoying AF. Such is the case with activist shareholders as well, rich people or organizations who buy stock in a company so they can wreck it from the inside because they don’t like what the company is all about. Such was the recent case with Smith & Wesson.

Last week, a Clark County (Nevada) District Court judge dismissed a lawsuit against the company. The lawsuit, initiated by anti-gun activist shareholders within Smith & Wesson, was aimed at curtailing the production of AR-15 style rifles, AWR Hawkins over at Breitbart News reported.

The suit, filed by groups including the Adrian Dominican Sisters and Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia (two organizations of what amounts to social activist nuns) alleged that Smith & Wesson’s board members and senior management exposed the company to potential legal liabilities by manufacturing and marketing AR-15s and similar firearms (kind of what the whole company is all about). Despite these claims, the plaintiffs even recognized that firearm companies are generally shielded under the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act (PLCAA) but wanted to push forward anyway. That is until a judge ordered them to pay a bond to see the case through.

On May 6, 2024, Judge Joe Hardy ruled in favor of Smith & Wesson, pointing out the plaintiffs’ failure to meet a court-ordered requirement to post a $500,000 bond necessary to proceed with their case. The plaintiffs apparently didn’t mind wasting everyone else’s time and money to pursue a frivolous case, but when it was put up or shut up themselves lacked the half million-dollar commitment. Fortunately, the judge saw through this, his decision underscoring the judicial system’s recognition of lawful firearm manufacturing and the importance of adhering to legal standards in corporate governance.

Breitbart News, which followed the lawsuit closely, reported that the court found no “substantial likelihood” of liability on the part of Smith & Wesson, indicating that the shareholder activists were clearly not acting in the best interest of the company. This ruling reaffirms the strength of legal protections afforded to gun manufacturers under federal law, ensuring that responsible companies can continue to support law-abiding citizens’ Second Amendment rights and provide them with products that are manufactured with quality and meet the highest performance standards.

The dismissal of this case in Nevada’s Clark County is a reminder of the legal robustness supporting the firearms industry and its alignment with American constitutional rights.

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21 COMMENTS

  2. My Smith & Wesson Sport AR is currently safely residing in Indiana along with the the verboten 30 round magazine’s. Runs like a champ. This “disinvestment” is akin to the attempt to destroy Israel. We’ll have NUN of this! Oh & ILL annoy dims🙄

    • It still amazes me how much cheaper more available and generally better ARs have gotten over the last 15 years especially when one takes inflation into account.

    • I recently posted a video here of a base model M&P going through over 800 rounds of continuous (reloading mags) automatic fire. It finally stopped after the fire from the heat began damaging it. If they can handle that, they can handle anything the average user will throw at it.

  4. The dismissal does not appear to have anything to do with the protections afforded firearms companies but instead the protections afforded corporations against shareholder action under the business judgement rule. Courts do not second guess decisions by corporate boards when it appears that a reasonable corporation would take such action. And since the business of SW is manufacturing firearms, any reasonable board would conclude that continuing to do so was in the corporation’s best interest.

    • Pretty much, the nuns were trying to claim that S&W was putting their share holders at risk where the benefits outweigh the rewards but failed to do such.

    • The point to the PLCAA is that the spurious claim of protecting the corporation from lawsuits was just a fig leaf for an attempt to damage Smith by forcing them to abandon profitable lines.

  5. Adrian Dominican Sisters and Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia – ya gotta wonder about what their motives really were … nah, not really.

    They purchased stock in a gun company to try to get standing as ‘damaged’ stock holders to sue the company for doing exactly what they invested in – in an attempt to bypass the PLCAA and attack from another angle.

    I’ll bet they would have taken the money though if they sold their stock or took the dividends.

    I’m pretty sure an anti-gun org was in the background to push them to do this. I mean, what better test of a ‘new’ law-fare attack vector can ya have than to get others to do the dirty work for you to see if it works, and using nuns (‘brides of christ’) too.

    • Nus are nothing but dried up old prunes that didn’t want to spread their legs or have any children.Just someone for dirty old preists to hump instead of choir boys. All are f’ed up !

  7. You have to wonder who inspired that course of action? And did they provide any support to do so?

    • I believe these “nuns” are nuns in name only. We have talked at length on TTAG in the past, about gun rights referenced in the bible.

      These so called nuns and any other “professional religious persons.” They just refuse to accept what is written in the bible, about firearms ownership and responsibility.

      I challenge these anti-civil rights “christians” all the time.

      • Chris I’ve read the bible front to back 6 times and I can find no references to firearmns.
        It talks about rocks, and swords, and whips, and bows, and clubs and trumpets but I’ve not yet found anywhere that God carries a 1911.
        Maybe I need a Gideon’s?

        • Read the bible again. It’s in there. Also, I understand the US Bill of Rights, says something about internet privacy. I’ve never seen that reference.
          And there was no internet in 1791.

  8. Yes there are rich people who buy stocks. And then use them, to hurt the civil rights of poor people.

  9. Nuns. At one of the parishes to which I was assigned, I went to a backyard picnic with the Sisters of St. Joseph. They were a California Cabernet…on the rocks.

    Like I said…nuns.

  10. Maybe a well to do 2A individual needs to counter sue the Adrian Dominican Sisters and Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia. Tell them to stay in their lane and divest of non “Sister” Christian business.

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