Saturday night special
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Saturday night special is a colloquial term in the United States and Canada for inexpensive, compact, small-caliber handguns made of poor quality metal. Sometimes known as junk guns, some states define these guns by means of composition or material strength. In the late 19th century and early 20th century, they were commonly referred to as suicide specials.


Definition

The term "Saturday night special" refers to cheap guns used in poor neighborhoods. They are usually small, of small caliber, and often unreliable or inaccurate. A single definition is not easy to come by; while legislation in the United States has tried to define them as either "unsafe" or "of no legitimate purpose", these attempts to define are problematic. The earliest known use of the term "Saturday night special" in print is in the September 29, 1917, issue of ''The Coffeyville Daily Journal'', referring to a "cheap revolver". In its August 17, 1968, issue, ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' printed a front-page article titled "Handgun Imports Held Up by U.S.", author Fred Graham wrote, "... cheap, small-caliber 'Saturday night specials' that are a favorite of holdup men..." The term "Saturday night special" came into wider use with the passing of the
Gun Control Act of 1968 The Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA or GCA68) is a U.S. federal law that regulates the firearms industry and firearms ownership. Due to constitutional limitations, the Act is primarily based on regulating interstate commerce in firearms by generally ...
because the act banned the importation and manufacture of many inexpensive firearms, including a large number of revolvers made by
Röhm Gesellschaft Röhm Gesellschaft, often referred to as RG, is a German brand of firearms and related shooting equipment. RG developed as a diversification of Röhm GmbH in the 1950s. After 1968, RG Industries was established as a US division in Miami and oper ...
. With importation banned, Röhm opened a factory in
Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...
,
Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...
, and a number of companies in the United States began production of inexpensive handguns, including
Raven Arms Raven Arms was a firearms manufacturer established in 1970 by firearms designer George Jennings. The Gun Control Act of 1968 prohibiting the importation of inexpensive handguns prompted Jennings to design the MP-25, a .25-caliber semi-automatic ...
, Jennings Firearms,
Phoenix Arms Phoenix Arms is a firearms manufacturer established in 1992. A predecessor company owned by George Jennings, Raven Arms, ceased operations in 1991, after which Jennings retired and sold his designs to Phoenix. Phoenix was founded and owned by Je ...
,
Lorcin Engineering Company Lorcin Engineering Company was a firearms manufacturer established in 1989 by Jim Waldorf. Lorcin produced a series of very inexpensive handguns, which were sold primarily through pawn shops and marketed to people with low income. As such, their ...
,
Davis Industries Davis Industries was a firearms manufacturer established in 1982 by Jim Davis. Davis produced a series of inexpensive handguns, which were sold primarily through pawn shops and marketed towards people with low income. The guns were constructed of ...
, and
Sundance Industries Sundance Industries was a firearms manufacturer established in 1989 by Steven Jennings, the nephew of Raven Arms founder George Jennings. Sundance produced a series of inexpensive pocket handguns, which were sold primarily through pawn shops and m ...
, which collectively came to be known as the "Ring of Fire companies". Gun ownership advocates describe the term as racist in origin arguing that many of the guns banned were typically purchased and owned by low-income black people. In his book ''Restricting Handguns: The Liberal Skeptics Speak Out'', gun rights advocate
Don Kates Don Bernard Kates Jr., (January 26, 1941 – November 1, 2016) was an American lawyer and research fellow with The Independent Institute in Oakland, California who focused on promoting gun rights. His books include ''Armed: New Perspectives On ...
found racial overtones in the focus on the Saturday night special.


Issues


Criminal use statistics

While Saturday night specials are commonly perceived as inexpensive, and therefore disposable after committing a crime, criminal behavior does not always conform to this expectation. A 1985 study of 1,800 incarcerated felons showed that criminals at the time preferred revolvers and other non-semi-automatic firearms over semi-automatic firearms. A change in preferences towards semi-automatic pistols occurred in the early 1990s, coinciding with the arrival of
crack cocaine Crack cocaine, commonly known simply as crack, and also known as rock, is a free base form of the stimulant cocaine that can be smoked. Crack offers a short, intense high to smokers. The ''Manual of Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment'' calls ...
and rise of violent youth gangs. Nonetheless, three of the top ten types of guns involved in crime (as represented by police trace requestsGuns Used in Crime: Firearms, Crime, and Criminal Justice—Selected Findings July 1995, NCJ-148201
abstractarticle
) in the US are widely considered to be Saturday night specials; as reported by the ATF in 1993, these included the Raven Arms .25 caliber, Davis P-380 .380 caliber, and Lorcin L 380 .380 caliber. However, the same study showed the most common firearm used in homicides was a large caliber revolver, and no revolvers of any kind appear on the top ten list of traced firearms.


Availability

In 2003, the
NAACP The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...
filed suit against 45 gun manufacturers for creating what it called a "public nuisance" through the "negligent marketing" of handguns, which included models commonly described as Saturday night specials. The suit alleged that handgun manufacturers and distributors were guilty of marketing guns in a way that encouraged violence in black and Hispanic neighborhoods. The suit was dismissed by US District Judge
Jack B. Weinstein Jack Bertrand Weinstein (August 10, 1921 – June 15, 2021) was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York. Until his entry into inactive senior status on February 10, 2020, he mainta ...
, who ruled that members of the NAACP were not "uniquely harmed" by illegal use of firearms and therefore had no standing to sue. Proponents of gun ownership argue the elimination of inexpensive firearms limits constitutionally protected gun rights for those of lesser means.
Roy Innis Roy Emile Alfredo Innis (June 6, 1934 – January 8, 2017) was an American activist and politician. He was National Chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) from 1968 until his death. One of his sons, Niger Roy Innis, serves as Nation ...
, former President of
Congress of Racial Equality The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) is an African Americans, African-American civil rights organization in the United States that played a pivotal role for African Americans in the civil rights movement. Founded in 1942, its stated mission ...
(CORE) and a member of the
National Rifle Association The National Rifle Association of America (NRA) is a gun rights advocacy group based in the United States. Founded in 1871 to advance rifle marksmanship, the modern NRA has become a prominent Gun politics in the United States, gun rights ...
's governing board, said "to make inexpensive guns impossible to get is to say that you're putting a money test on getting a gun. It's racism in its worst form." CORE filed as an
amicus curiae An ''amicus curiae'' (; ) is an individual or organization who is not a party to a legal case, but who is permitted to assist a court by offering information, expertise, or insight that has a bearing on the issues in the case. The decision on ...
in a 1985 suit challenging Maryland's Saturday night special/low-caliber handgun ban.
Peter Rossi Peter Henry Rossi (December 27, 1921 – October 7, 2006) was a prominent sociologist best known for his research on the origin of homelessness, and documenting the changing face of American homelessness in the 1980s. Rossi was also known for his ...
and
James D. Wright James David Wright (November 6, 1947 - April 29, 2019) was an American sociologist. He had been the Provost's Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Central Florida since 2001. Since 2013, he had also ...
authored a study for the
National Institute of Justice The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is the research, development and evaluation agency of the United States Department of Justice. NIJ, along with the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), Office of Juvenil ...
which suggested the ban on Saturday night specials was ineffective or counterproductive. A
Cato Institute The Cato Institute is an American libertarian think tank headquartered in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1977 by Ed Crane, Murray Rothbard, and Charles Koch, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Koch Industries.Koch Indust ...
Policy analysis Policy analysis is a technique used in the public administration sub-field of political science to enable civil servants, nonprofit organizations, and others to examine and evaluate the available options to implement the goals of laws and elected ...
by
Dave Kopel David B. Kopel (born January 7, 1960) is an American author, attorney, gun rights advocate, and contributing editor to several publications. As of August 2021, he is research director of the Independence Institute, associate policy analyst at ...
went further:
The people most likely to be deterred from acquiring a handgun by exceptionally high prices or by the nonavailability of certain kinds of handguns are not felons intent on arming themselves for criminal purposes, who are more likely to use stolen weapons, but rather poor people who have decided they need a gun to protect themselves against the felons but who find that the cheapest gun in the market costs more than they can afford to pay.


Regulation


United States

The earliest law prohibiting inexpensive handguns was enacted in
Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
, in the form of the "Army and Navy Law", passed in 1879, shortly after the 14th amendment and
Civil Rights Act of 1875 The Civil Rights Act of 1875, sometimes called the Enforcement Act or the Force Act, was a United States federal law enacted during the Reconstruction era in response to civil rights violations against African Americans. The bill was passed by the ...
; previous laws invalidated by the constitutional amendment had stated that black
freedmen A freedman or freedwoman is a formerly enslaved person who has been released from slavery, usually by legal means. Historically, enslaved people were freed by manumission (granted freedom by their captor-owners), abolitionism, emancipation (gra ...
could not own or carry any manner of firearm. The Army and Navy Law prohibited the sale of "belt or pocket pistols, or revolvers, or any other kind of pistols, except army or navy pistols", which were prohibitively expensive for black freedmen and poor whites to purchase. These were large pistols in .36 caliber ("navy") or .44 caliber ("army"), and were the military issue
cap and ball The percussion cap or percussion primer, introduced in the early 1820s, is a type of single-use percussion ignition device for muzzle loader firearm locks enabling them to fire reliably in any weather condition. This crucial invention gave rise ...
black-powder revolvers used during the Civil War by both Union and Confederate ground troops. The effect of the law was to restrict handgun possession to the upper economic classes. The next major attempt to regulate inexpensive firearms was the
Gun Control Act of 1968 The Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA or GCA68) is a U.S. federal law that regulates the firearms industry and firearms ownership. Due to constitutional limitations, the Act is primarily based on regulating interstate commerce in firearms by generally ...
, which used the "sporting purposes" test and a points system to exclude many small, inexpensive handguns which had been imported from European makers such as Röhm. Most manufacturers in the US were not directly impacted by the Gun Control Act, as they were not subject to the import restrictions, and for the most part they did not manufacture compact, inexpensive handguns that competed with the banned imports. However, demand for inexpensive handguns still existed and a number of new companies were formed to fill that gap. In an effort to cut costs, many of these guns were made with cast components made of the zinc alloy
zamak ZAMAK (or Zamac, formerly trademarked as MAZAK) is a family of alloys with a base metal of zinc and alloying elements of aluminium, magnesium, and copper. Zamak alloys are part of the zinc aluminium alloy family; they are distinguished from the ...
rather than the more typical machined or cast
steel Steel is an alloy made up of iron with added carbon to improve its strength and fracture resistance compared to other forms of iron. Many other elements may be present or added. Stainless steels that are corrosion- and oxidation-resistant ty ...
. As a result, legislation against "junk guns" subsequently targeted the zinc frames used in construction by specifying a melting point. The development of
polymer A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + ''-mer'', "part") is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic a ...
-framed guns, which will burn at temperatures much lower than the commonly specified led to this becoming ineffective. Subsequent legislation regulated size (such as barrel lengths under ), materials (such as zinc), or low-cost manufacturing techniques (e.g., density requirements that specifically ban inexpensive powder cast metals), Some of these legal restrictions are based on
product liability Product liability is the area of law in which manufacturers, distributors, suppliers, retailers, and others who make products available to the public are held responsible for the injuries those products cause. Although the word "product" has br ...
law.


Canada

In Canada, the 1995 Firearms Act (known as Bill C-68 before passage) classified handguns with a calibre of .25 or .32, or having a barrel length of 105 mm or shorter, as "prohibited" weapons. This provision appears to have been specifically aimed at "Saturday night specials". Exceptions are made for target pistols in these calibres used in international shooting competitions.RCMP List of Restricted and Prohibited Firearm


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saturday night special Gun politics in the United States Handguns