Remington is one of the oldest names in the firearms business. It’s long been synonymous with guns in this country, what with both the firearms themselves and the ammunition bearing the same name. Sure, they’re not under the same umbrella anymore, but the name means something.
And in New York, it means a few hundred jobs. That’s where Remington’s plant has been located since well before the Civil War.
That’s about to no longer be the case.
A gun factory in upstate New York with a history stretching back to the 19th century is scheduled to close in March, according to a letter from the company to union officials.
RemArms, the current version of Remington Arms, will close its facility in the Mohawk Valley village of Ilion around March 4, according to the letter sent Thursday. The letter said the company “did not arrive at this decision lightly,” according to the Observer-Dispatch of Utica.
The plant currently employs about 270 workers, according to union officials.
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Investors doing business as the Roundhill Group purchased the Remington-branded gun-making business, including operations in Ilion and Lenoir City, Tennessee for $13 million. Owners announced plans in 2021 to move the company’s headquarters to Georgia.
Union officials are upset, arguing that it was these workers who helped pull Remington out of bankruptcy. I’m not going to get into a discussion of that claim because, well, it would get well beyond the issue of Remington itself.
Now, let’s understand that the decision to shut down this particular plant was, mostly, financial. New York isn’t exactly a cheap states at the best of times, so it’s entirely likely that shutting this operation down will save Remington a great deal of money.
But there’s a flip side here as well, and that’s how Remington makes products for an industry the state of New York is openly and proudly antagonistic toward.
I’ve never really understood gun companies having operations in anti-gun states. I get that they might have started there and have a deep tradition of making guns there, but when your elected officials are basically doing everything they can to run you out of business, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense to stay in such a hostile environment.
RemArms already relocated their headquarters to Georgia and that’s coming with a massive manufacturing operation there as well. There’s likely no reason to keep paying taxes to a state that’s trying to gut the Second Amendment.
If there’s a downside to this it’s in the fact that 270 jobs lost in the state isn’t going to be that noticeable. Officials there won’t even blink at those jobs or tax dollars evaporating into the nether. As such, there’s no real way to…encourage them to stop trying to infringe on people’s right to keep and bear arms.
Still, for RemArms, it’s an opportunity to just quit a state that they’ve given so much to and that’s tried to take so much from them. Every firearm and firearm-related company in the state should consider doing the same thing.
