September 11, 2018

Action Alert:
Support Nuns Fighting to Regulate Smith & Wesson


Update: At the American Outdoor Brands shareholder meeting on September 25, 2018, the resolution introduced by the nuns’ Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility successfully passed. AOB was required to issue a report addressing the role Smith & Wesson’s products play in gun violence and showing evidence the company is exploring ways to make firearms safer for consumers. In its February 2019 report, however, AOB defended S&W’s actions and claimed “smart gun” technology is impractical and unwanted by customers. Sturm Ruger issued a similarly frustrating report. On April 9, 2019, Majority Action and ICCR issued an investor advisory calling on Sturm Ruger shareholders to withhold support from board chairman Michael Jacobi and director Sandra Froman, a former NRA president. The advisory noted both executives had refused to meet with shareholders at all on the issue. Their failed during Sturm Ruger’s annual meeting in April 2019, but Jacobi and Froman are now agreeing to meet with the nuns for the first time. Thanks to everyone who has taken this action so far. Keep contacting AOB!


After the devastating mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in which 20 children and six adults were killed, a group of nuns in the Northwest decided to do something meaningful in response to the horror.

Sister Judy Byron of Seattle is one of the nuns who forced Sturm Ruger to monitor the harm its products are doing and then reduce that harm.

They started buying stock in two publicly-traded gun companies —Sturm Ruger and American Outdoor Brands, the parent company of Smith & Wesson. They bought the minimum amount of stock in each company to file a formal resolution ( approximately $2,000). First, they filed a resolution with Sturm Ruger that called on the company to track incidents of violence involving its guns, demonstrate to shareholders what it’s doing to make its products safer (including utilizing “smart gun” technology); and report on the risks that gun violence might pose to the company’s reputation and finances. Sturm Ruger told shareholders to vote no, but 69% of them voted yes, approving the resolution.

Now the  nuns have filed a similar resolution with American Outdoor Brands, which will be voted on by shareholders on September 25, 2018. The nuns got a big boost when the influential shareholder advisory firms Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass Lewis came out in support of the AOB resolution.

LIke Sturm Ruger, Smith & Wesson’s parent company is telling shareholders to vote no. Worse still, they had the temerity to cite disgraced gun “researcher” John Lott to support their position. Lott has made up fake personalities to praise his work online and now runs the “Crime Prevention Research Center,” which has Ted Nugent and climate deniers on its board of directors.

Please contact American Outdoor Brands through one of the channels below and give them the following message, personalized to your liking:

I am absolutely disgusted that American Outdoor Brands cited fraudulent pro-gun researcher John Lott in its SEC filing of September 10, 2018 advising a NO vote on the resolution brought by a group of Catholic nuns from the Northwest. Lott is a man who “lost” the key survey underpinning his “More Guns, Less Crime” book and used a fake personae, “Mary Rosh,” to praise the book online. His research has been rejected and refuted by the National Academy of Sciences and the public health community at large. It is an offense to AOB shareholders who are victims and survivors of gun violence to cite junk science like you did. They and all your shareholders deserve a mature, serious response. If you can’t manage that, then the shareholders will have another vote and choose a new board of directors to re-organize your incompetent executive team.

American Outdoor Brands
Phone: (844) 363-5386
Email via webform (select “Media Relations” or “Customer Service”): http://aob.com/contact/

Once you have contacted American Outdoor Brands, fill out the three fields below and click the orange banner to report taking action!


This is an action alert, NOT an online petition. Please take the action before filling out the fields below.

46 people have taken this action