As gunmakers face growing pressure from the public and investors to curb violence after mass shootings, the owner of Smith & Wesson firearms plans to split the gun business into a separate company.
American Outdoor Brands said Wednesday that it would become an outdoor products business that sells everything from Hooyman tree saws to Bubba fishing gear, with Smith & Wesson as a separate publicly traded company.
American Outdoor Brands’ share price has tumbled as retailers have faced growing public outcry over mass shootings and a decline in gun sales. Sales from the company’s firearms segment have fallen 38% over two years through April.
In October, Dick’s Sporting Goods said it destroyed more than $5 million of military-style semi-automatic rifles and was considering whether it would continue to sell guns at its stores. In September, Walmart said it would stop selling ammunition that could be used in military-style assault rifles after a shooting at one of its stores in El Paso, Texas.
The decision to spin off Smith & Wesson was motivated by “significant changes in the political climate as well as the economic, investing and insurance markets,” Barry M. Monheit, chairman of American Outdoor Brands, said in a statement.
On Tuesday, the Supreme Court allowed relatives of shooting victims at the Sandy Hook Elementary School to sue the Remington Arms Co., the maker of the rifle used in the massacre in Connecticut.
American Outdoor Brands is not the first major outdoors company to spin off its firearms business. After the fatal 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which involved an AR-15 rifle, the outdoor goods retailer REI suspended orders of bike helmets and water bottles made by Vista Outdoor because of the company’s production of assault-style firearms.
Two months later, Vista Outdoor moved to sell its gunmaking business.
The specific AR-15 involved in the Florida massacre, however, was manufactured by Smith & Wesson, whose products have been implicated in several other high-profile shootings. A 9-millimeter Smith & Wesson handgun was used in the attack on YouTube’s headquarters in San Bruno, California, in 2018. One of the firearms owned by the gunman who attacked a Colorado movie theater in 2012 was manufactured by Smith & Wesson.
And in February, a disgruntled employee who had been fired from his job returned to a suburban Chicago factory with a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson handgun with a laser sight, which authorities said he used to kill five of his former co-workers.
After the restructuring, James Debney, the president and chief executive of American Outdoor Brands, will lead the outdoor pursuits business, while Mark Smith, the president of the manufacturing services division, will take up the role of chief executive at Smith & Wesson Brands, the firearms business.