And with share prices low, now wonder they’re buying them up.

S&W posted record profits repeatedly for years (that recently changed but it’s not a major loss).

Well, if you don’t consider a massive 75% drop in share price a “major loss.” As a stockholder of SWHC, I do. And they haven’t had years of record growth. The growth didn’t take off until Q2 2005; in Q4 2005 share price dropped almost 50%; growth again in 2006, with another Q4 drop of over 30% (investors hate that pattern, because it indicates management is setting expectations that may be unrealistic, and the class-action lawsuit slapped on S&W last December reflects just that); great growth in 2007, then the bottom fell out in Q4. No real recovery yet. Share price is within a buck-fifty of the crash value.

BTW, Ruger is also running at close to its 52-week low after a nose-dive last fall. So I don’t know who your people in the gun business are, but they may be speaking from emotion, not numbers. The market has yet to see any improvement. So it’s a wonderful time for hedge funds like Cerberus to go…hunting. No tin-foil hats, no schemes to bring down the gun industry: it’s just a great time, economically, to buy up some companies.