Recently, The Epoch Times posted an article about the village of Ilion, New York. For two centuries, Ilion has been the home of a Remington Arms Co. manufacturing plant.
The article reports:
In the village of Ilion, New York, 80 miles west of the state capital in Albany, residents are mourning the departure of gunmaker Remington Arms Co. after two centuries of continuous operation.
Without fanfare, the company announced last month that the manufacturing plant would be closing its doors on March 4, 2024.
“I feel like a family member has died,” Ilion Mayor John Stephens told The Epoch Times. “My dad raised four kids on a paycheck from there for 37 years. He walked to work and carried his lunch every day.”
Mr. Stephens said no one expected the announcement a week after Thanksgiving that the plant was set to close.
On Nov. 30, at 3:26 p.m., the company notified village officials of the decision by email. The message noted that “all separations” with the village would be completed by March 18, 2024.
Likewise, the company notified its 270 employees that they would soon be out of a job.
The article notes:
Publicly, the company attributed the plant closure in part to a hostile political climate in Albany regarding firearms production.
“I am writing to inform you that RemArms LLC has decided to close its entire operation at 14 Hoefler Avenue, NY 13357,” Remington Arms said in a letter to employees. “The company expects that operations at the Ilion facility will conclude on or about March 4, 2024.”
The Georgia-based company said it would continue to make firearms at its facility in Huntsville, Alabama, which opened in 2014, a year after New York’s passage of the Safe Act, which created stricter gun laws.
The anti-gun political climate in Democrat-controlled Massachusetts prompted competitor Smith & Wesson to move from its longtime base in Springfield to Maryville, Tennessee. The company announced the opening of its new headquarters there in October.
The article notes that the town has been losing population in recent years:
Until recently, Remington Arms employed about 1,500 workers, whose wages helped support the local retail economy, said village public historian Mike Disotelle.
“At noontime, when the employees would go to lunch, there would be a flood of factory employees going to local businesses,” he said.
Mr. Disotelle said Remington Arms was one of the village’s largest employers and a centerpiece of the downtown economy. This remained true even as the village continued to lose residents over the course of several decades, he said.
In 1960, the village had 10,000 residents. Today, that number is down to about 7,700 and could drop below 6,500 by 2030 due to the slow economy, high taxes, and limited housing availability, Mr. Disotelle said.
The northeast is losing its luster because of high taxes, limited housing, and the high cost of living. There is an exodus from blue states to red states. We just need to remind people not to bring their blue politics into red states.