Tag Archives: Remington Arms

Policies Have Consequences

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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.

If This Stands, It Sets A Dangerous Precedent

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On Tuesday, The Washington Times reported that the families of nine victims in the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting have successfully sued Remington Arms for $73 million. According to The Associated Press, the gun used in the attack was the Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle, manufactured by Remington Arms.

The article reports:

“This victory should serve as a wake-up call not only to the gun industry, but also the insurance and banking companies that prop it up. For the gun industry, it’s time to stop recklessly marketing all guns to all people for all uses and instead ask how marketing can lower risk rather than court it. For the insurance and banking industries, it’s time to recognize the financial cost of underwriting companies that elevate profit by escalating risk. Our hope is that this victory will be the first boulder in the avalanche that forces that change,” Mr. Koskoff added.

…The families pointed to one of the company’s advertisements that showed the rifle with the phrase, “Consider Your Man Card Reissued,” according to AP.

The gun company had argued that their marketing had nothing to do with the shooting and that federal law gave the gun industry immunity. But the Connecticut Supreme Court allowed the case to proceed under state law.

The article concludes with some legal opinions on the case:

Kenneth Abraham, a law professor at the University of Virginia, said it’s uncommon for settlements to include the release of company documents and for gun manufacturers to be held liable in situations like the Sandy Hook massacre. 

“This is unusual. It may well provide a basis for suits against firearms manufacturers in similar situations in the future,” Mr. Abraham said. 

Nora Freeman Engstrom, a law professor at Stanford University, said that while the multimillion-dollar settlement is notable, the fact that company information will be shared is important. 

“Many scholars believe that the greatest benefit of public health litigation is the information such litigation can bring to light. Information is critical, as it can help regulators regulate, and it can steer consumers to safer, not shoddier, goods,” she said. “This litigation could end up being important, not just for the precedent it set but for the information it unearthed.”

But Timothy D. Lytton, a professor at Georgia State University College of Law, warned that lawsuits like this are still a long shot until the Supreme Court weighs in on the matter. 

“This is not a floodgate story. This is a maintaining momentum story,” Mr. Lytton said, referring to lawyers who bring claims against gunmakers. “These lawsuits are still a long shot.”

To me, this is the equivalent of a family killed by a drunk driver speeding in a sports car suing the car manufacturer. The car is not the problem–the person operating the car is the problem. In the case of Sandy Hook, the gun was not the problem–the person using the gun was the problem. However, this is a legal settlement within the State of Connecticut, so hopefully it will end there.

A Judge’s Ruling That Ignores The Law

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Yesterday The Daily Signal posted an article about a recent lawsuit regarding the horrific shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. The parents of the children who were killed have sued the manufacturers of the guns used in the shooting.

The article reports:

It is important to remember that the rifle used by Adam Lanza, a semi-automatic AR-15, had been legally bought by his mother, Nancy Lanza. Lanza killed her while she was sleeping before he headed to the elementary school and engaged in his killing spree. In fact, some of the families blamed Nancy Lanza for what happened, saying that she knew about her son’s mental problems and “ignored all the signs” of his “increasing instability.”

The parents subsequently filed a wrongful death lawsuit in state court against Bushmaster Firearms, Remington Arms, and a host of other firearms manufacturers. The families claim that the manufacturers acted “unethically, oppressively, immorally, and unscrupulously” in marketing the “assaultive qualities and military use of AR-15s to civilian purchasers.”

I don’t mean to be difficult, but the manufacturers had nothing to do with the events at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

The article reports:

Of course, the main problem faced by the plaintiffs is that this lawsuit is absolutely barred by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act of 2005 (PLCA). The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act was passed by Congress and signed into law by President George W. Bush to stop these types of emotionally-charged lawsuits against gun manufacturers. Codified at 15 U.S.C. §7901-7903, the Congressional “Findings” specifically state that businesses that manufacture, market, distribute, import or sell firearms should not “be liable for the harm caused by those who criminally or unlawfully misuse” such weapons. Such civil liability lawsuits “may not be brought in any Federal or State court.”

The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act provides only limited exceptions to this prohibition. One exception is for lawsuits claiming a normal product liability issue, such as the harm caused by a weapon that contained a design or manufacturing defect that caused it to malfunction. Or if the manufacturer deliberately sold the gun to someone who is prohibited from owning a guns—like a felon. Or if the manufacturer encouraged a gun owner to misuse the weapon in a way that led to the harm.

What happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School was horrific. A mentally ill young man managed to get hold of a gun and went on a killing spree. Unfortunately, the way our laws are currently written, this was not a preventable crime. The laws that cover committing a person to a mental hospital have gotten complicated, and it was reported that the young man’s mother was attempting to have him hospitalized because of his mental state. Unfortunately, she was not able to complete that complex process before her son killed her. Maybe the answer is a review of our mental health policies–not suing people who are not responsible for the crime.