Gun manufacturers in Sturgis

The Daschle v. Thune blog notes that Sturgis, South Dakota is a "mecca" for gun manufacturers, as a 1999 piece in the Wall Street Journal, headlined "High Plains Drifter: In the Besieged World Of Gun Manufacturers, Geography Is Destiny; Galena Inc. Found a Haven In Tiny Sturgis, S.D., 'A Place That Wanted Us'" reports. Excerpt from the WSJ piece:

David Small and James Keith like nothing better than gabbing about guns, browsing in gun stores, and blasting shooting-range targets.

Three years ago, the businessmen buddies decided to turn their hobby into a moneymaking enterprise. Though neither had any firearm-industry experience, they bought the remains of a dwindling California pistol manufacturer....

Their new company, Galena Industries Inc., got under way near Los Angeles in mid-1998. But it wasn't a propitious moment to enter the gun trade.

Within four months, cities and counties began a coordinated campaign of suing firearm manufacturers. Making matters worse, California enacted tough new gun-company regulations in 1998 that would apply to Galena....

But the pair decided to make a go of it. Even though the established company whose assets Galena bought has been named in some of the municipal lawsuits, Messrs. Small and Keith believe they have legally insulated themselves from liability. And in response to California's hostility to gun companies, the pair
decided to shop for a more hospitable locale.

To their delight, a posse of towns in Western and Plains states responded, jostling to offer financial incentives. The eventual winner was tiny Sturgis, which, it turns out, has become something of a gun-company haven here in South Dakota's rugged Black Hills. Galena's rebirth indicates both how determined
many people in the gun business are to survive in the face of legal peril and how drastically geography can shape attitudes toward those who produce firearms.

Of course, Tom Daschle's tap-dancing on the gun issue this week has done nothing to help these small South Dakota businesses, and everything to help the interests of the state of California, at the behest of Dianne Feinstein, the senior senator from California. And it was California that this small business was trying to escape. How is Tom Daschle "delivering for South Dakota" when Sturgis gun manufacturers continue to be exposed to liability because of Tom Daschle trying to have it both ways on the issue of gun control?