As an FFL I notice that quite a few guns are made in Massachusetts. I realize some of the guns are made by the same manufacturer (Smith is now making walthers I believe) but it still seems there are a lot of different companies stamping Massachusetts as the place of manufacture on their guns…
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Mass. one of the more anti-gun states in the nation? How is it then that so many of these companiesb are located there? Do they have any problems being located there (is the state/people giving them a hard time?). are there protesters picketing ouside the factories?
Or doesn’t the state care about the actual manufacturing of guns, just the ownership of them? Either way, why would some many companies pick Massachusetts to set up shop? I understand the older companies that have been there for a while, but why are new companies showing up there? My only guess is it has something to do with business laws and articles of incorporation.
Despite the laws, there’s not the opposition to guns here that you might imagine. For example, I live just down the street from what claims to be the oldest gun club in America. Also, in many of the smaller towns you’ll find a “Gun Shack” or similar (my personal favorite was “Guns for the Good Guys”, as if that particular store had some monopoly on the well-intentioned customers )
Your general question is a bit of a tough one to answer factually and directly. I’m sure if any manufacturer found it so difficult to conduct business they would relocate to a more politically friendly climate. S&W was around a long time before the modern gun control debate and in any case state laws generally are limited to private ownership not manufacture which is regulated by the BATF. S&W cannot sell directly to the public and in most cases has a distributor between them and dealers.
FWIW S&W provides distribution and warranty service for Walther in the US but my P22 was still made in Germany. Not sure about the S&W branded version of the P99 and the .45 ACP version which is not offered under the Walther brand AFAIK.
Didn’t you hear what happened to General Gage on April 19, 1775 when he marched to Lexington and Concord to sieze the guns and ammo of the suburbanites living there?
Read what happened when he told those guys to lay down their arms and go away. It is interesting.
I’m not sure that guns being made in Massachusetts is any more ironic than Jack Daniel’s whiskey being made in Moore County, Tennessee, which has been dry ever since Prohibition.
Massachusetts and Connecticut might be considered the original “industrial” states. Therefore, some of the very old manufacturing companies like Colt and Stanley (tools) are located in those states. The states don’t want to lose those manufacturing jobs so they have made it attractive to continue to operate there. The northeast has lost a lot of manufacturing jobs to other states and overseas but a some of the companies have held on.
It’s primarily a matter of them being old companies that have survived. It is unlikely that a new gun manufacturing company would locate in the northeast.
Yes, exactly. The companies were here long before the anti-gun laws came into being. The laws are actually pretty recent; 1980’s IIRC. But, the state has absolutely nothing against the manufacture of weapons, only unlicensed ownership. The Patriot missile system was designed here, too, although I’m not sure where it was manufactured. But, you can’t own one of those without some really serious paperwork, either.
I’m not so sure about this. It may be unlikely, but it might actually make sense. Where else are they going to find such a long-standing history of, and knowledge of, gunmaking? And, while Mass. has a reputation for taxing the shirts off the citizen’s backs, it’s extremely generous with tax breaks for businesses.
There is an extensive machine-tool and mechanical manufacturing industry, certainly not limited to firearms, in the Connecticut River Valley, including Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts as well as Connecticut. The industry is mostly descended from companies that were created to supply the US Army’s Springfield (Mass.) Armory in the early 1800’s. The Armory, home of the Springfield Rifle, was an early pioneer in mass production techniques and especially the manufacture of interchangeable parts. Those technologies were obviously transferrable to other products.
The firearms companies in the area are there because they’ve been there for two centuries, and their businesses are impervious to political disapproval from Boston (there is a considerable resentment toward Boston in western Mass, perhaps contributing to some protectiveness of local employers, anyway).
The Patriot missile is produced by Raytheon, which has a number of facilities in the Boston area. The missile itself was previously produced in Andover, Mass., but production has been transferred to Arizona.
… presumably because of Arizona’s less stringent gun control laws?
Actually there aren’t a lot of major firarm manufacturers in Arizona which is a gun-friendly state by any standards. There are a lot of specialty manufacturers of guns and related items such as Robar, Dillon Precision and McMillan but the only big name manufacturer AGAIK is Ruger who makes some .22 pistols.
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