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Tuesday, August 30th, 2022

Feeling Unwelcome in Blue States, Gun Companies Move to Red Ones

Author:     Todd Frankel
Source:     MSN / The Washington Post
Publication Date:     29 August 2022
 Link: Feeling Unwelcome in Blue States, Gun Companies Move to Red Ones
Stephan:   Something very strange is taking place in the U.S., but getting very little coverage at least on the context of the trend it represents. Corporations requiring high intelligence, as well as physicians, nurses, and female college students are all moving out of Red states to Blue states, or choosing not to go to colleges and jobs in Red states. Concurrently, as this story spells out, the weapons corporations that make the guns that kill tens of thousands of Americans each year are leaving Blue states and moving into Red states. I am going to follow closely the cultural impact of this transformation. I will say today that I predict that Red states which already have inferior social outcome data in comparison with Blue states will become even less attractive to large population groups, and the Red states, in contrast will become more violent as people in those states increasingly go around during their days armed with guns.
Feeling unwelcome in blue states, gun companies move to red ones
Credit: Charles Krupa / AP

Smith & Wesson CEO Mark Smith was fed up. He was running the largest firearms manufacturer in America, based in Springfield, Mass., where it had been making weapons since 1860, and yet state lawmakers were considering a bill to ban the manufacture of AR-15-style rifles for the civilian market. The proposed law would cripple Smith’s company. Sixty percent of Smith & Wesson’s revenue came from AR-15-style guns.

So after years of flirting with the idea, Smith announced last September that Smith & Wesson was pulling up stakes and moving its headquarters from Massachusetts to Tennessee.

Deciding to leave was “extremely difficult,” Smith told investors, but “we feel that we have been left with no other alternative.”

At least 20 firearms, ammunition and gun accessory companies — including some of the industry’s biggest names, such as Beretta and Remington Arms — have moved headquarters or shifted production from traditionally Democratic blue states to Republican red ones over the past decade, relocating thousands of jobs […]

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3 Comments

  1. Michael Edwards-Ronning on Tuesday, August 30, 2022 at 4:24 am

    60% of Smith & Wesson’s production is AR-15 style rifles?! I am appalled that, for profit, for money, they are willing to move to a red state, and continue to increase our level of national violence and bloodshed. That is tragic. To me, this is ethically unacceptable. Mr Smith and other CEOs have forgotten their sense of social responsibility, and in this case would rather move from Massachusetts to Tennessee and continue to manufacture military style weapons for the general public, even if more school children, concert goers and shoppers are murdered in large numbers.

    • Albus Eddie on Tuesday, August 30, 2022 at 5:33 am

      Social Responsibility? Corporations exist to produce profit for the shareholders, nothing more. Since Corporations have been granted personhood, they need to be held to the same standards as persons with their officers given jail time for crimes committed by the organization. Until this change occurs it will continue to be business as usual.

      • Rev. Dean on Tuesday, August 30, 2022 at 11:27 am

        I totally agree with you, Albus. There is no excuse for making military weapons for civilians to use. They have no purpose in a civil society.