SPRINGFIELD -- Hundreds of high school students and their supporters, including a contingent from the Episcopal church and other religious groups, protested gun violence Wednesday outside Smith & Wesson in Springfield.
They called for CEO P. James Debney to meet with students and for the company to help solve gun violence.
The kids didn't mince words.
"Did you think of the young people when you sold those guns?" said Valentina Pedroza, 17, a senior at John D. O'Bryant school in Boston.
Smith & Wesson made the semi-automatic rifle a deranged gunman used in the Feb. 14 killing of 17 youths and adults at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
Killers also used Smith & Wesson firearms in the 2012 movie theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado, that killed 12 and the 2015 holiday party shooting in San Bernandino, California, where 14 people died.
Brittany Ayinde, a senior at Springfield Central High School, said Smith & Wesson makes firearms here that aren't legal to sell or own in Massachusetts because of their design and the number of bullets they can carry.
"If they can't be sold here, it's not right for them to pump them out here and send them all over the country to put kids in danger," she said. "They just make the country less safe."
Founded in 1852, Smith & Wesson and its parent company, American Outdoor Brands Corp., has 1,600 employees at its headquarters and plant on Roosevelt Avenue in Springfield.
According to financial disclosures, Smith & Wesson in fiscal 2016 shipped 309,000 rifles, up 46.4 percent from the 211,000 shipped the previous fiscal year. That compares with its higher-volume, but slower-growing, handgun business. Smith & Wesson shipped 1.5 million handguns in fiscal 2016, up 27.3 percent from the 1.2 million it shipped in fiscal 2015. The company has not released updated versions of those numbers.
Smith & Wesson has not returned calls from The Republican seeking comment on the protest, and had no outward reaction Wednesday.
After hearing from speakers and gathering on the steps of a nearby World War I memorial, students took a letter to the Smith & Wesson guardhouse and left it with a security employee there. The guardhouse is in a separate building, hundreds of yards from the factory and offices.
Passing motorists honked horns in support of the demonstration, which drew media attention from around the country, including The Washington Post and New York Times.
Wednesday was a day of protests and student walkouts all over the country. At Central High School, faculty and administrators tired to channel the protest into a school assembly.
"But there were 10 of us who didn't think that was enough," Ayinde said. "Se we walked out of the school and stood outside for 17 minutes. Now we might be punished for it."
Gun control debates have raged for decades, said Bishop Douglas J. Fisher of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts. But teens, inspired by survivors of the Parkland shooting, are keeping the issue from fading in the news cycle.
"I think this is a real turning point for this nation," Fisher told the crowd outside Smith & Wesson. "These youth are going to move us into a whole new day."
Jay Gonzalez, a Democrat running for governor, attended the rally and announced his plan to ban the manufacture of military-style assault rifles in Massachusetts.
Smith & Wesson's only manufacturing facilities are in Springfield and in Houlton, Maine. It also has a plastics plant in Deep River, Connecticut.
Now a staunch supporter of the National Rife Association and its opposition to firearms restrictions, back in the 1990s Smith & Wesson started to cooperate with Clinton-administration gun reforms. Those rules would have included "smart gun" technology, or guns that could only be fired by their owner. Boycotts and outrage followed, and the backlash was nearly enough to destroy the company.
Smith & Wesson changed the name of its parent company in 2016 to American Outdoor Brands Corp., reflecting a diversification strategy into camping equipment, knives and gun accessories such as scopes.