In The Beginning
The 1968 Gun Control Act (GCA) arose in response to the assassination of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Prior to the ’68 GCA, Americans just ordered their firearms through the mail. Afterwards guns had to pass through a federally licensed firearms dealer. The ’68 GCA also codified restrictions on which cheap guns could be legally imported.
These rules were intended to exclude the infamous Saturday Night Specials. This nebulous pedestrian term refers to any inexpensive small handgun that readily lends itself to nefarious applications. To meet the importability threshold, a gun had to have a barrel at least 3" long and be a minimum of 4.5" in overall length. There was also a point system based upon such stuff as caliber, weight, construction and sights along with an associated aggregate overall cutoff for importability.
The ’68 GCA excluded a great many handguns previously legal to import. The Walther PPK, for example, didn’t make the cut. The subsequent PPK/S sported a larger frame and an extra round in the magazine and did meet the criteria. This was likely the only example extant wherein a gun got better because of a gun control law.
With a substantial slice of the market now left unaddressed, the indomitable engine of capitalism went to work filling it. The end result was the American-made Clerke First revolver. To call this repugnant pistol “crap” would be offensive to feces.