Smith & Wesson increased scrutiny due to the frequent use of its firearms in mass shootings such as the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, in which 19-year-old Nikolas Jacob Cruz used a Smith & Wesson AR-15 style rifle, the semi-automatic M&P15. The same weapon was used in the 2015 San Bernardino attack and the 2012 Aurora shooting. Smith & Wesson has produced revolvers over the years in several standard frame sizes. "M" refers to the small early Ladysmith frame, "I" to the small .32 frame, "J" to the small .38 frame, "K" to the medium .38 frame, "L" to medium large, and
Smith & Wesson a new facility and began experimenting with a new cartridge design more suitable than the .22 Short that it had been using. At the same time, the company's design was being infringed upon by other manufacturers which led to numerous lawsuits filed by Rollin White. In many of these instances part of the restitution came in the form of the offender being forced to stamp "Manufactured for Smith & Wesson" on the revolvers in question. White's vigorous defense of his patent caused a problem for armsmakers in the United States at the time as they could not manufacture cartridge revolvers.