Over microstamping. I’m sure there are plenty of other states that would be happy to have them. You know, the North won the Civil War largely because all the manufacturing and arms making industries were located in the industrialized areas, mainly of the Northeast. If the South were ever to rise again, where’s all the manufacturing and arms making in the country now? More importantly, where does all our nuclear material come from? What city makes rockets? Just something for Northeastern elites to consider. What does the Northeast manufacture these days other than financial crises?
22 thoughts on “Colt and Remington Threatening to Relocate”
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It’s time to end the threats and to just make the announcement that they’re moving and make it clear that the job losses are directly related to the NYS lawmakers being hostile to tax paying legal manufacturing. Next, stop offering warranty services to NYS gov’t agencies and no longer sell to gov’t agencies in NYS.
And all those Gun Manufacturers in Illinois need to leave, also. Don’t they get the fact that their State Business Taxes go to Fund the Anti-Gun Legislature in Springfield? And today there’s a news story that Cook County, Illinois (“ChicagoLand”) wants to Impose a “Sin Tax” on Guns and Ammo. If they stay, then I’m really wondering why they insist on “Sleeping with the Enemy.”
Ummm… ARMY missile command? Y’all know that the ICBMs belong to the USAF, right?
If this site is to be believed, nuclear weapons manufacturing are spread out between a few states, including California…. http://www.ananuclear.org/Portals/0/documents/nuclear%20complex%20map.pdf
Other ‘rockets’ are manufactured in, for instance, Massachusetts: http://andover.patch.com/articles/raytheon-to-work-on-patriot-missile
Fun to bash the ‘northeastern liberals’, but let’s not believe our own rhetoric too much, eh? :-)
That’s warhead production, which we’re destroying now rather than producing. Nuclear warheads are actually all owned and controlled by the Department of Energy, and are loaned to the military for deployment. But I’m talking about where the delivery systems are made. Boeing makes the Minuteman III, which is the current ICBM deployed by the Air Force. Where they make it, I don’t have a good link for. Redstone made a good and convenient link.
All things considered, I’d rather have the warheads than the rockets. Can always kick a bomb out the back of a C-130 in a pinch! ;)
Raytheon doesn’t manufacture rockets in Massachusetts. They manufacture rockets and missiles in Arizona. Most of their MA manufacturing is for radars and command and control (C2) systems. I was a Raytheon engineer on the Patriot program up until a few years ago.
I sure hope they are not bluffing.
I doubt they are. Despite what the anti-gun folks say, this will add serious costs, and require the entire manufacturing process to be redesigned. Moving out of state is cheaper. Even if it was achievable at reasonable cost, you have to accept the fact that future injuries and usurptations are inevitable in states where the political classes hate arms and the right to keep and bear them.
Remington isn’t bluffing because the bill itself is written to totally prohibit the sale, transfer and manufacture of news pistols without microstamping. They will not be able to produce the 1911s in Illion nor will Kimber be able to operate in Yonkers.
I’m not one to necessarily cry foul (fowl? Duck!), but I’ve heard the expense argument before in relation to the cost of goods sold, not as a argument against moving. Building a manufacturing facility of the size needed for Remington would not be a cheap undertaking. Is there a reference to a serious business comparison with actual costs?
I’m not saying they don’t have some moral choice, or the right to just thumb their nose and those that don’t want them. I’d just like to see the actual business models for moving vs implementing stamping. Including expected losses from lack of product sales, if estimated.
The cost of moving isn’t the cost of the new facility; It’s the cost of getting the machinery in the new facility up to speed.
It seems to me that the amount of process workflow changes that will be required to accommodate microstamping into the process would require them to significantly change the way they manufacture firearms.
Thus, mandatory microstamping forces them to absorb nearly all the costs associated with moving their facilities, without actually moving their facilities. Thus, they’ve come out and publicly stated that if they’re going to have to go through that kind of hassle in order to stay in business, then it removes all incentive to remain where they are.
Let’s not forget that New York is also a high tax state. Moving out of state won’t just save them on retooling costs; they will also save significant money on taxes depending on where they go.
Also, although the company was founded in upstate NY, they are headquartered in NC and apparently have facilities in KY and AR as well. So it may not be a question of building a new plant, but rather of expanding an existing facility somewhere more welcoming.
It’s too bad. Ilion is in one of the most economically depressed parts of New York State. Once those jobs leave, they’ll be gone for good.
It seems like a pretty easy move for Remington:
Don’t forget on top of all of these other issues (taxes, costs of changing production processes to accommodate micro-stamping, etc), a move would allow them to remove the burden of a heavy union workforce (and I suspect give them room to maneuver on legacy healthcare and retirement payments for all their retired union employees). And then there are the avoiding Obamacare issues as well.
Which mean a ton to the bottom line. Altogether, and well it becomes much easier to do. Plus, there is a much more educated, eager, workforce down south these days than up North (especially when it comes to manufacturing).
Real Estate can be had cheaply. And I’m sure they can find a gorgeous location and great tax incentives too. One of the Carolina’s, or Georgia, or Tennessee would go gaga over the opportunity. And it gets them closer to their customer base too.
Makes sense for all the right reasons.
Probably more difficult for Colt, since I believe they are still jointly owned by the union and the state of Connecticut. But I could be wrong about that. Haven’t followed them for a while (though I do love my Colts)
I suspect that Remington is sticking around more out of nostalgia for where they were founded than for economic or business reasons.
The northeast manufactures drugs. Lots and lots of drugs. A good portion of this country’s pharmaceutical research happens in Massachusetts and New Jersey (also California and one area of North Carolina).
The northeastern states are doing their damndest to drive out pharma, based on the plant and site closures I keep hearing about
You’re right, pharma has downsized quite a bit in that region. However, it’s been due to reasons beyond state level regulation. It’s also a situation that is unlikely to change significantly no matter who is elected this year.
I live in the region, and you’re right, the snark was perhaps unjustified. In some ways, the uncertainties attendant on a Romney win in re PPACA would make things worse for pharma, actually.
OTOH, while the market for Big Pharma is changing, they are relocating out of state as much as shrinking.
At what point do these state-level laws constitute a restraint of trade, enforceable by the commerce clause? I mean, if anything, this is the original understanding of the commerce clause, right?
As long as they are applied evenly for everybody, there’s no problem. The commerce clause issue arises if, for say, they ban the sale(or simply tax differently) an item manufactured elsewhere but otherwise legal to sell while allow items from the state to be sold. In this case, they end up punishing their own citizens. If the citizens of a state want to do that to themselves (and that’s what a state action is, the citizens are doing it) then no ones gonna stop them.
Also, if the South were to rise, they’d have a well trained cadre to start with.
http://www.prb.org/source/acf1396.pdf
Page 10. Around 40% of recruits come from the South (2002 numbers latest I could find). I’m sure .mil has a report somewhere, but my Google-fu is weak today.
I did find a (at least partial) list of AR manufacturers, at least according to Wikipedia. It would seem the South is well represented in weapon manufacture (without taking the time to hunt down every manufacturing facility, their yearly output and maybe a regional heat map…). If the several companies in CN, MA, NY or IL wanted to move, they’d find takers.
In case the owners of Colt and Remington are reading the comments I nominate, suggest and recommend Arizona (home of Free-er State West) for their future operations. Sturm, Ruger & Co. seems to be operating happily in Prescott.