Will the last firearms manufacturer
leaving New England please turn out the lights and bolt the door
behind you?
New Britain, Connecticut-based Stag
Arms is poised to abandon its home there with the ultimate
destination likely being Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Though only a 10-year-old firearms
manufacturer, Stag Arms is making good on a promise it announced in
April. That being, should Connecticut go forward with passing a
strict gun-control law that would prohibit its citizens from buying
buying the products the company makes then it will move to a place
more gun-friendly.
When Connecticut did outlaw the bulk of Stag Arms products the company set its sights on other out-of-state targets.
Such a bull's-eye likely will be Myrtle Beach,
though Texas has also wined and dined Stag Arms; each in the hopes
its CEO Mark Malkowski will pack his company's bags and move to one
of the respective states.
Malkowski most recently met with Myrtle
Beach officials and area legislative leaders.
Their sales pitch to Stag Arms included
the fact that firearms giant FN is located in South Carolina along
with having a skilled workforce already familiar with firearms
manufacturing.
Such a workforce is necessary given
that Stag Arms manufactures a variety of AR-platform rifles, which
features 80-percent of the hardware being made in-house and the
remainder being made elsewhere but within the United States.
On its Facebook page dated June 4, Stag
Arms noted that it hosted South Carolina Rep. Alan Clemmons who was
given a grand tour of the plant along with a “..very long
discussion about jobs, firearms freedoms, manufacturing, and the
future of the economies in both states.”
If Stag Arms does leave Connecticut –
as all but certain it will – that will still leave several other
firearms makers left in the state. Among them are some of the most
well-known and largest firearms makers not just in the U.S., but the
world.
The list of current Connecticut-based
firearms companies include Southport-Conn.-based Ruger, North Haven,
Conn.-based O.F. Mossberg and Sons, North Haven, Conn.-based Marlin,
and West Hartford, Conn.-based Colt's Manufacturing Co.
Each of these companies, however, have
also been invited to leave gun-unfriendly Connecticut for a state
with a more favorable environment toward firearms ownership,
including the kinds of guns recently outlawed by the state for civilians to buy.
That sort of legislative action has
prompted a call by gun owners that if firearms manufacturers want to
stay in gun-unfriendly states then they'll pay a price via a buyers'
boycott.
And such a boycott could hurt Connecticut's economy.
It is estimated that firearms making in
Connecticut generates $1.7 billion annually to the state's economy
and employs 3,000 workers.
Already gone from Connecticut is PTR
Industries, which was based in Bristol, Conn., but is moving to
Myrtle Beach; the same location now trying to snag Stag Arms.
PTR is
expected to employ about 140 workers, including any relocated employees.
“The rights of the citizens of CT
have been trampled upon. The safety of its children is at best
questionably improved from the day of the (Newton) tragedy that
triggered the events that led us here.
“Finally, due to an
improperly drafted bill, manufacturing of modern sporting rifles in
the state of CT has been effectively outlawed.
“With a heavy heart but a clear mind,
we have been forced to decide that our business can no longer survive
in Connecticut – the former Constitution state,” said PTR's vice
president of sales John McNamara in a recent company electronic media
release.
But Connecticut is not alone in being
abandoned as other states ratchet their own gun laws.
Fort Collins, Colorado recently lost
gun accessory maker HiViz. The maker of fiber optic gun sights is
moving across the boarder to Laramie, Wyoming.
This, in spite of the fact that HiViz
does not make any product even remotely being singled out for
banning.
Still, the firm said it is leaving
Colorado for the much-more gun-friendly state of Wyoming because of
the former's recent enactment of restrictive gun laws.
Also set to leave – and making no
bones about it either - is Magpul, a manufacturer of high-capacity
magazines, which while legal to purchase, own and use in most other states,
are no longer legal to buy in Colorado.
Magpul is now making its products
elsewhere, though exactly where is unknown with most presumptions
centering on somewhere in Texas.
Colorado is even in the crosshairs of
some non-resident hunters who have said they will not visit the state
this fall because of its recent enactment of several stringent
gun-control laws.
Whether all of this is just a trickle
of discontent or a watershed moment when the firearms industry weighs
more heavily Second Amendment concerns over the hard economic
realities associated with moving is something that gun owners and
state governments will be following closely.
- Jeffrey L. Frischkorn
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