Shot Dead - How Colt was done in.

WHEN a senior executive from Colt's Manufacturing stood beside Pat Schroeder and other Democratic members of Congress at a Washington press conference in 1996, reporters showed up in droves to cover the event. Here was one of America's most storied gun companies cuddling up to antigun zealots in the name of promoting so-called smart guns. The press tossed hosannas to everybody as it described a wonderful future in which all guns would be "smart"-i.e., inoperable by unauthorized users, such as kids and thieves. "This technology gives me hope that we can figure out a way to prevent gun deaths," said Schroeder.

Nearly four years later, there's still no smart gun-and there has been a major gun death, of sorts: Colt itself. The company-which has sold more than 30 million firearms since 1836, when 22-year-old Sam Colt won a patent for a revolver-announced in October that it would quit making almost all of its civilian handguns. It had become a casualty of antigun lawsuits. As Donald E. Zilkha, the owner of the Connecticut- based company, grumbled in a letter to the Hartford Courant, "In spite of our every effort at reasonableness and cooperation, the state continues to make it difficult for us to conduct business and, in fact, is threatening to sue us."

So that's what Colt got for trying to reach an accommodation with its enemies. One more litigant-the state of Connecticut-would hardly have mattered; more than two dozen cities and counties were already targeting the company when it decided to cease most of its handgun production. And they gloated when Colt made its announcement. "That is just the beginning," said Chicago mayor Richard Daley. "This has been a multimillion-dollar corporation that has [inflicted] a lot of havoc, a lot of death and injuries in America and throughout the world."

An astonishing statement, that. Colt isn't some fly-by-night maker of cheap Saturday-night specials-it's a part of American history. There's an old saying, often repeated by the company's admirers: "Abe Lincoln may have freed all men, but Sam Colt made them equal." The West was tamed with Colt guns, and generations of U.S. soldiers have carried them into battle. Mayor Daley apparently thinks the GIs should have been suing the Nazis rather than shooting them.

Then again, lawsuits can be deadly. "We have had to face the harsh reality of the significant impact which our litigation defense costs are having on our ability to operate competitively in the marketplace," said Colt in a sad, explanatory letter to distributors last fall. Lawsuits against Colt also effectively rubbed out its smart gun, the one whose prototype all the gun-controllers posed with on Capitol Hill four years ago. As recently as last year, Colt suggested that it might have a civilian smart gun available by 2003. The problem was coming up with the millions of dollars needed for research and development. The litigation made it impossible to raise funds.

And there could be a lot of money in smart guns, especially if politicians start to write laws insisting on them. Such laws have already been discussed in state legislatures. In a March primary debate, George W. Bush responded to a question on what he planned to do about child gun deaths by mentioning the emerging technology: "I think the ultimate solution is for . . . smart guns to be manufactured that require a certain handprint in order for the gun to be used."

Colt had hoped to develop a product that would work not by handprint recognition, but by a unique radio transmitter worn as a wristband. This is trickier than it sounds; a gun's forceful kickback makes it difficult for delicate electronics inside the gun to function reliably. Imagine whacking a garage-door opener with a baseball bat after each use. What's more, the miniaturized technology has to be affordable. When the first generation of smart guns goes on the market-one company may have a shotgun activated by magnetic ring in stores later this year-the price will be hefty. And consider the huge risks of a company putting its name on a weapon that might stop firing, not because it has run out of ammo, but because a few rough jerks have scrambled its microchip. Old-fashioned dumb guns will look pretty smart in comparison.

Before giving up, Colt had actually won a $500,000 federal grant for smart-gun development; but that was merely a fraction of what it needed. And the company was pouring more of its resources into lawyers' fees than smart guns. This had repercussions outside Colt's offices in West Hartford, too. Insurance companies started to balk at covering the manufacturer. Last fall, as Colt was shutting down its civilian-handgun lines and laying off scores of workers, it tried to spin off its smart- gun division as a separate company, iColt. Despite the cyber-sounding name, this was no dotcom stock offering; investors simply weren't interested in a company facing litigation modeled on the tobacco industry's ordeal, so iColt quickly flopped.

The cities and counties suing gun makers over the cost of urban crime claim they just want to make their streets safer. Several of them, in fact, have said manufacturers must reserve 1 percent of their revenues for smart-gun development as a condition of settlement. But if they were at all sincere, they might have chosen not to name Colt as a defendant. Here, after all, is a company that has pioneered smart-gun technology, sometimes over the objections of other companies worried that politicians will legislate expensive changes to how ordinary guns are made and sold.

In fact, Colt has for years been seen by some of its competitors as a bit too "socially responsible" (as one ex-Colt employee put it) for its own good. "I fully expected Colt would be the first company to make a deal with the Clinton administration, not Smith & Wesson [which was, in fact, the first]," says one gun-industry official. Just over two years ago, Ronald Stewart, who was then Colt's chief executive, published an editorial in a trade magazine imploring gun companies to support a federal gun-licensing system. Colt owner Zilkha contributed $2,000 to the successful Senate campaign of Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat who had made his name crusading against guns, as well as $10,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. This apostasy inspired many gun buyers to call for a boycott of Colt. Word spread on the Internet. The privately held company won't say much about its financial health, but it's clear these moves affected its bottom line. Doug Kiesler, a gun wholesaler who has been one of Colt's biggest customers, told the Wall Street Journal last year that his Colt sales were off 20 percent.

The company is not about to go under, though. It is now refocusing on the low-profit military contracts that currently provide most of its revenue. The company also continues to make a few expensive handguns for collectors and rodeo performers. There's a Colt computer game, too.

But leaving the civilian handgun market doesn't end Colt's problems. Those lawsuits are still pending, and more may be on the way. Colt emerged from bankruptcy only six years ago, and it has a history of lousy management and poor labor relations.

In 1994, Colt moved out of its longtime home in downtown Hartford, abandoning a brick plant whose onion-shaped bronze dome was topped by a bucking colt. The armory's still there, and it remains a distinctive architectural landmark. But it is empty of life. Like the company that used to fill it, it can only hint at its former glory.