State Senator Martin Golden used to pay lip service to the Constitutional Right to Bear Arms — That’s all gone since his vote in favor of Governor Andrew Cuomo’s and Shelley Silver’s Anti-gun S.A.F.E. Act — Now watch as the gun industry abandons New York State along with what Golden laughingly refers to as “Jobs, baby, jobs...”

Remington is looking to move to a gun-friendly environment and is exploring Tennessee for an expansion of production capability, probably at the expense of its facility at Ilion, New York.

“Remington’s roughly 1,200-employee plant in Ilion makes rifles such as the Bushmaster semiautomatic weapon, which is now banned under New York’s Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act, the first law passed by any state post-Newtown.”  

According to a report in the Tennessean, “One of the nation’s largest gun manufacturers, Remington Arms, has looked at sites around Nashville for a potential corporate relocation or expansion that would likely include hundreds of manufacturing jobs  [thousands if it decides to close its plant in New York State] . ***  The Madison, N.C.-based company, which is part of the nation’s largest firearms company and has its largest plant in Ilion, N.Y., has scouted sites near Nashville’s airport, Lebanon and in Clarksville, Tenn.  Remington’s roughly 1,200-employee plant in Ilion makes rifles such as the Bushmaster semiautomatic weapon, which is now banned under New York’s Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act, the first law passed by any state post-Newtown.” (See “Remington Arms scouts Middle TN after N.Y. bans its rifle...” by Getahn Ward, 8/20/13, The Tennessean [http://www.tennessean.com/article/20130820/BUSINESS01/308200019/Remington-Arms-scouts-Middle-TN-after-N-Y-bans-its-rifle?gcheck=1&nclick_check=1]).


The new gun law, supported by State Senator Martin Golden, made the whole of the State of New York hostile territory for those who care about gun rights and the gun industry. The New York law now includes a ban on rifles with detachable magazine capability and one military-style feature; semiautomatic pistols are limited to seven shot magazines and it also bans magazines that contain more than seven rounds; it requires instant background checks on all ammunition purchases at the time of the sale; furthermore, it requires mental health professionals to report concerns about a gun-owning patient who posed a risk of harming himself or others; in addition the law contains a much stricter definition of assault weapons than the previous law in new York State that would ban most assaly-style weapons on the market when the law passed.

The 11th hour passage of the S.A.F.E. Act by a majority of NY Senate Republicans, including Golden, upset not only the state’s gun manufacturers, but also business people and other residents of  upstate New York. Erin Crowe, office coordinator for the Mohawk Valley Chamber of Commerce in Utica, N.Y. said,  “Ilion, New York, is Remington — if it wasn’t for Remington, Ilion wouldn’t exist.” She went on, “There’s not a lot of new industries coming to central New York, so if you take a huge company like [Remington] and they leave, our unemployment rate is going to skyrocket.”

Not long ago, lawmakers from several states including Michigan, South Carolina, Arizona, Oklahoma and Texas also made pitches to woo Remington. However, Remington is not the only gun maker that looking to vacate New York in the aftermath of the enactment of the S.A.F.E. Act.

Earlier this year, Kahr Firearms Group was reported to have been in talks to relocate its corporate headquarters, and its research and development department from Pearl River, N.Y., to Pike County, Pennsylvania, where Kahr has purchased 620 acres of land. The firearms maker also indicated that it planned to open a new factory there within five years — with additional employment of up to 100 manufacturing jobs. It’s especially notable that before New York passed its  tougher gun control law, Kahr had been close to finalizing an agreement for land in Orange County, N.Y., seeking room for growth there.

Next time you see State Senator Golden, ask him if he thought about any of this before he decided to vote for the S.A.F.E. Act