It didn't surprise me to see gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson decide to install safety locks and develop smart gun technology.

It was just good business.

President Clinton said "courage and wisdom" drove the gunmaker's decision.

That's nonsense.

It was just good business.

I think Paul Jannuzzo said it best. He's an official with Glock, an Austrian gunmaker.

He said Glock "is still doing the balancing test. We are still weighing the idea of bleeding to death with legal bills vs. the cost of complying with the government's demands."

I am confident that Glock and most other gunmakers will do the same thing Smith & Wesson has done.

And while it may be good business, I don't think it's good policy.

I'm not talking about trigger locks. I am not against trigger locks. I think trigger locks are fine. They're a good idea. I think gunmakers should provide them. There is no question that triggerlocks can save children's lives.

Of course a trigger lock is only as good as the gun owner. If the trigger lock gets tossed in a drawer somewhere, it's not going to do much good.

So trigger locks may or may not render firearms less dangerous to the innocent.

For the sake of argument, let's concede that they do.

That's not the issue that bothers me about all this.

What really bothers me is this trend by our government to legislate by lawsuit.

They did it to the tobacco industry. Now they're doing it to the gun industry.

One must wonder what industry will be next. What legal product will be next to become politically incorrect and a target of the lawsuit legislators.

Smith & Wesson saw the handwriting on the wall. If they didn't do what the Clinton administration wanted, they would have faced dozens and dozens of lawsuits.

Twenty-eight cities and thousands of public housing authorities under the direction of the Department of Housing and Urban Development were poised to go to court against the gun manufacturer.

Even if the suits had no merit and S&W won every one of them, the cost to the company would have been staggering.

S&W essentially would have been sued out of existence.

So, to avert certain financial disaster, S&W settles with the government.

The Clinton administration wanted trigger locks and smart guns. The Clinton administration couldn't get laws passed forcing gunmakers to comply with those demands.

So the government did the next best thing. The government, with threats of litigation, coerced the gun makers into complying with its demands.

The same thing happened in the tobacco industry. When government doesn't get its way legislatively, it turns to litigation.

It appears the White House thinks the end justifies the means. As long, of course, as the end is a politically profitable one. And in this case, the White House comes out looking like the darling of gun control.

S&W had no choice.

It had to do what the White House wanted, law or no law. Sure, the White House got its trigger locks, but I think it's almost criminal for them to use public resources as coercion.

Robert Levy is a fellow in constitutional studies at the Cato Institute.

He characterizes this administration's penchant for legislation by lawsuits as "no better than blackmail masquerading as law."

I couldn't agree more.

The issue here is not trigger locks. The issue is government oppression. [[In-content Ad]]