RemArms, which makes Remington firearms, is shutting down its New York plant. This isn’t news because, well, we’ve covered it already.

More than two centuries in one place is a feat, but now it’s at an end.

What isn’t at an end, though, is debate over just why RemArms is moving its operation completely.

Republican leaders, including U.S. Rep. Elise Stefanik and state Sen. Mark Walczyk, who both represent the village of Ilion, have blamed New York’s “unconstitutional gun-grab policies,” as Stefanik said, for the company’s closure of the plant.

RemArms LLC — which has owned Remington Arms’ firearms manufacturing since the original company declared bankruptcy in 2020 — announced that the closure of the Ilion plant will come with them moving the New York manufacturing operations to their Georgia headquarters.

“RemArms is excited to expand our facilities in Georgia, a state that not only welcomes business but enthusiastically supports and welcomes companies in the firearms industry,” the company said in an emailed statement.

…

The United Mine Workers of America, who represent the Ilion Remington facility’s hundreds of workers, disagreed that blame for the closure of the plant rests with the state’s gun laws.

“It is not our understanding or our belief whatsoever that this has anything to do with the laws,” said Erin Bates, the union’s spokeswoman. “They’re obviously moving to a very non-union state.”

Obviously, the union isn’t pleased with what’s happening, but RemArms is pretty explicit in saying that they’re coming to Georgia because it’s not an anti-gun state.

The fact that it’s also a Right to Work state probably doesn’t hurt, but why would Remington keep operating in a state that’s so explicitly hostile to them and the products they make?

More importantly, United Mine Workers has a long history of favoring Democrats, the same party that routinely favors gun control. Yes, there are exceptions to that, but most politicians with a “D” after their names favor restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms.

In other words, the United Mine Workers Union has a long history of favoring the very candidates that would have put some of their own members out of work.

Just take a look at who they’ve endorsed recently and you’re not going to find a lot of Republicans.

So it’s not surprising that they are trying to make this about Georgia’s position on mandatory union membership–there are still unions in Georgia. They just can’t make you join if you don’t want to–rather than their rather long history of supporting anti-gun politicians.

The truth of the matter is that if New York got its way, those Remington jobs were going to disappear anyway. The difference is that by going to a pro-gun state, they still exist for someone.

New York has long been hostile to the Second Amendment. The state’s actions against the NRA are, in part, predicated on the belief that if they can make the NRA go away, gun control will somehow magically pass, which would hurt Remington as a company.

Those jobs were likely to disappear sooner or later if the state got their way.

At least now, they’re going to stick around for a lot longer. Possibly even another 200 years.