Faltering gunmaker Remington Firearms will cut its 205-year-old ties to New York and move the company’s upstate headquarters to Georgia – the latest iconic weapons manufacturer to flee the restrictive Northeast for more gun-friendly laws in the South.
The company announced Monday that it would invest $100 million in a new facility in LaGrange, Georgia, southwest of Atlanta, and hire 856 people over five years.
Remington, which was founded in 1816 in Ilion, was bought out of bankruptcy for the second time in June 2020 after being weighed down by lawsuits and retail sales restrictions following the Sandy Hook massacre and other school shootings.
The move to Georgia comes slightly more than a month after famed gunmaker Smith & Wesson announced it will leave its historic 165-year-old headquarters in Massachusetts for a new home base in gun-friendly Tennessee, saying proposed legislation in the deep Blue state to ban manufacturing of assault weapons would devastate its bottom line.
Why?
Stiff NY State taxes on businesses; higher operational fuel costs in long, very cold winters, hot, short summers; increased transportation costs (fuel, vehicle maintenance, fees, insurance) for raw material supply and finished product delivery; higher factory and worker insurance costs; increased facility maintenance costs (old, old buildings); state political climate vs. local (anti-gun Blue, NYC-Albany elite rainbow-driven in longtime Red, predominantly white working class area).