Chairman of gun firm steps down over armed robbery convictions

THE new chairman of the legendary gunmaker Smith & Wesson has resigned after it was revealed he had served ten years in prison for armed robbery.

James Joseph Minder cannot even legally buy one of Smith & Wesson’s products because he is under a lifetime ban on the ownership of firearms.

Mr Minder, 74, spent more than ten years in prisons in Michigan in the Fifties and Sixties for a string of armed robberies, in which he brandished a 16-gauge sawn-off shotgun, and for a failed prison escape.

The resignation has reignited the controversy over the right to own and bear arms in this election year, with the pro-gun lobby claiming a "witch hunt" against Mr Minder, who has had a clean record since 1969.

The gun-control lobby pointed out that next week the US Senate plans a floor debate on whether manufacturers such as Smith & Wesson, and gun dealers such as the one in Washington that sold a high-powered rifle to the Washington sniper, John Mohammad, should receive protection, shielding them from litigation by victims of crime.

Mr Minder, of Scottsdale, Arizona, told the Republican newspaper: "Quite frankly, I’ve done nothing wrong. I felt resignation was the best thing for the company, given the circumstances."

He said he submitted his resignation voluntarily at a meeting of directors of the Smith & Wesson Holding Corp this week.

The newspaper said the gun maker was expected to name a replacement for Mr Minder today.

Mr Minder said he did not disclose his criminal past to the other directors of the 150-year-old gun company before his election as chairman in mid-January.

He said: "Nobody asked." He emphasised he had turned his life around in the decades since his release from prison.

Following his release, Mr Minder founded Spectrum Human Services, a non-profit agency serving delinquent and disabled Michigan youths and ran it for 20 years before retiring to Arizona in 1997.

Mike Barnes, president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said: "Only in the National Rifle Association’s America can a company chaired by a one-time violent hoodlum be on the verge of being given a licence to behave negligently, which is what the United States Senate is close to doing."

Mr Barnes added: "Mr Minder's record is not the issue, gun industry immunity legislation is the issue. Mr Minder has cleaned up his life, and that’s admirable. But Smith & Wesson appointed him to its board, and made him chairman, without discovering his prior record. Gun companies in America make errors all the time."

A spokeswoman for Million Moms, the anti-gun lobby in the US that hopes to attract hundreds of thousands of supporters to a rally in Washington, DC, on 9 May, Mother’s Day, said: "What a country this is, that allows a man with a violent criminal past to take the top job at a gun company. We are delighted he has resigned, but he should never have gotten the job in the first place. "A spokesman for the NRA said: "He has done nothing wrong, he has paid his debt to society and has spent the last 30 years devoted to making America a better place. It’s nothing more than a witch hunt.

"The gun-control lobby is picking on this man for what happened many years ago. It’s not guns that kill, it’s the people who pull the trigger. A manufacturer of a gun should not be persecuted for the way in which the public uses its products."

Yet gun-control advocates had their first whiff of success in years on Capitol Hill last night when the Senate voted overwhelmingly to require handguns to be sold with child safety devices.

The vote added the amendment to the bill designed to give gun manufacturers protection from litigation.