Anti-Gun NY SAFE Act Costs Empire State Another 122 Jobs

Remington Arms is laying off another 122 workers at it’s historic Ilion, NY factory, and New York only has its anti-liberty Democrat Party to blame.

Remington Arms Co. has laid off 122 workers at its Ilion plant due to slowing sales.

“The small arms industry is facing significant near-term challenges related to slowing order velocity and high channel inventories; a dynamic from which Remington is not immune,” said a statement from Jessica Kallam, Remington’s manager of media relations and public affairs. “After exploring all the options available to us, we are compelled to reduce our work force by releasing 122 team members today at our Ilion, N.Y. site. As we move forward, we will continue to monitor all segments of the business for growth opportunities.”

The layoffs include about 110 members of the United Mine Workers of America Local 717, said union spokesman Phil Smith.

Prior to Wednesday’s layoffs, Remington’s Ilion plant employed about 1,100. The company also laid off 231 Ilion workers in August and November of 2014, some of them due to the consolidation of plants at a new facility in Huntsville, Alabama.

“We depend heavily on Remington for our economic well-being here in the Mohawk Valley,” said state Assemblyman Marc Butler, R-Newport. “However, they assured me this is a decision driven by market forces and it has no reflection on the overarching changes at Remington.”

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While Remington is publicly stating that “market forces” are to blame for the layoffs, the fact remains that Remington has been cutting workers in New York while adding them in gun-friendly states since Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his Democrat allies rammed through a poorly-written and blatantly unconstitutional NY SAFE Act gun control package in early 2013 without even giving legislators time to read the law. While Remington has laid off workers in New York since the NY SAFE Act passed, it has built new facilities and hired hundreds of workers in other states where the Constitution—including the Second Amendment—is still honored.

Numerous gun companies have left the state after the absurd law was rammed down the throats of New Yorkers in the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, and the industry steadily moved jobs south and west as a result.

Remington has been manufacturing firearms in Ilion for 201 years, a record of continuous manufacture in the same factory longer than that of any company in the United States in any line of work.

Thanks to the knee-jerk “we gotta do something!” New York Democrats, that history is threatened.

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