Does Social Responsibility Hurt a Company's Bottom Line?For better returns, should you invest in businesses engaged in social responsibility, or those on the opposite end of the spectrum?

On Dec. 14, 2012, when Gerry Sullivan learned that a deranged killer had gunned down 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, he looked into positioning his mutual fund in Smith & Wesson stock.

Shares of the gunmaker would plunge in the wake of the massacre, he reasoned. Then they'd slowly rebound as Congress ignored calls for stricter gun controls.