Remington vs Sen Schumer

America's Oldest Gun Maker Thumbs Its Nose At A Two-Faced Senator

Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) lost his “assault weapons” jobs. Remington Outdoor Company (ROC) announced it’s moving its Bushmaster rifle and Remington Model 1911 pistol production lines from its nearly 200-year-old plant in Ilion, New York, to its new facility in much more gun-rights-friendly Huntsville, Alabama.

In March of 2011 Senator Schumer put a press release on his website boasting: “Today, U.S. Senator Charles E. Schumer joined

Remington officials and plant employees to announce that Bushmaster Firearms is relocating a manufacturing facility from Windham, Maine to Ilion, NY, bringing over forty new jobs to Central New York in the process. Schumer has been a long-time supporter of manufacturing at the Remington plant, urging top Army officials to open up competition for the Army’s small arms contracts to other U.S. manufacturers and domestic producers across the country like the Ilion, New York-based Remington. Today, Schumer applauded Remington’s decision to add new jobs to the productive and capable work force already making the factory an economic powerhouse in the Mohawk Valley.”

Bushmaster makes AR-15s. These are the same semiautomatic rifles Schumer calls “assault weapons” and wants to ban nationally. On CBS’ show “Face the Nation” on December 16, 2012, Schumer said we need to “reinstate the assault-weapons ban.” He said this knowing he’d never be challenged for hypocrisy by Bob Schieffer or any other mainstream news journalist. He knows such journalists mostly support him, but he also knows they don’t have a clue about this issue.

Remington’s plant in New York State has been on shaky ground ever since the state passed the SAFE Act, a massive gun-control bill that bans the sale of an expansive list of what it deems “assault weapons,” including the AR-15s made by ROC in Ilion.
ROC’s spokesperson, Teddy Novin, also announced ROC is in the process of consolidating “multiple company plants into our Huntsville, Alabama facility. This was a strategic business decision to concentrate our resources into fewer locations and improve manufacturing efficiency and quality. We are working hard to retain as many from the affected facilities as possible.” The companies being relocated are: Advanced Armament Corp, Lawrenceville, Georgia; Montana Rifleman, Kalispell, Montana; TAPCO, Kennesaw, Georgia; LAR Manufacturing, West Jordan, Utah; 
Para-Ordnance, Pineville, North Carolina; and DPMS, St. Cloud, Minnesota.

A lot of gun companies have been moving. Most of the moves are a result of anti-gun politics in states such as New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Colorado and California. The catalyst for Remington’s moves is certainly in part New York’s ban on the sale of some of its most popular products, but it is also about staying viable economically. A lot of gun companies have been moving (mostly south) into more gun-friendly states, but they’ve also been moving into more modern facilities so they can better compete in America’s vibrant and growing gun market.

Grow the gun business has. The economic impact of the gun and ammo industry in the U.S. grew from $19.1 billion in 2008 to $37.7 billion in 2013—a 97 percent increase. During that same 5-year period the total number of full-time equivalent jobs in the gun industry went from about 166,000 to more than 245,000, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearms industry’s trade association.

Demand for ammunition has been so robust there have been prolonged shortages over the past few years. Some guns have become so popular manufacturers have been chronically backordered. It isn’t just the gun and ammo companies that have been expanding. Companies that make gun grips, sights and many other add-ons and accessories have also been growing.  

I’ve had several tours of Remington’s historic plant in Ilion, New York. They’ve been making guns there since 1816 when Eliphalet Remington began the company as E. Remington and Sons. Located near Utica in Upstate New York, the soot-soiled factory is the beating heart of Ilion and nearby Mohawk. It’s America’s oldest factory that still makes its original product—guns. In October of 2013 about 1,400 employees were making 4,900 guns per day in the factory. In the future, it seems, as the towns around the Remington Arms plant dry up its remaining retired residents will look back on 2013 as their last hoorah before the weight of government smothered their jobs from the state.

Over the last two years I’ve been working on a book that’ll be out this summer titled The Future of the Gun. Finding the truth about the gun business, about America’s age-old link to the gun and what really can reduce gun violence has taken me from the factories still making guns in New England and New York to new plants vibrant with humming CNC machines and busy R&D departments in the South and elsewhere. I’ve spent time with inner-city gang members, police officers, politicians and lobbyists. The truth about guns and America, about freedom combine with all the real people I’ve met who’ve spent their lives making quality American-made products for police departments, hunters, competitive shooters and the millions of citizens who want to protect themselves. This full and real picture leaves me lamenting not just the downsizing and perhaps slow death of another historic factory—casualties from competition are overall a healthy thing—but makes me sick that the cause isn’t competition but is dishonest and political. The means being used to push those workers out of communities they’ve grown up in and are raising their children in is disturbing when you see and understand the whole picture, a fabric of deeply American stories many in the media don’t comprehend enough to articulate even if they cared to do so.