The link has three stills and a video.

https://www.uticaod.com/news/2...ded-with-uncertainty

Remington’s future clouded with uncertainty

By Georgie Silvarole
Gannett New York
Posted Dec 12, 2019 at 4:58 AM

Ilion, a village of some 8,000 people, has found itself caught between a storied past and a fickle future.

It is the birthplace of America’s oldest gunmaker, Remington Arms, but the company’s future locally is clouded with uncertainty. It comes amid a soaring rise in mass shootings across the country and a recent Supreme Court decision allowing families of those killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting to sue the gunmaker.

Those in Ilion will tell you that the village and the company are synonymous — one doesn’t thrive without the other. Ilion’s mayor, Brian Lamica, is no exception.

Sitting in his office in early October, he pointed to a map hanging on the wall, tapping on the Remington Arms factory at the heart of the village. It employs about 820 people.

Remington is the reason why Ilion can afford to have its own police department, its own school district and its own water authority. Ilion, he says, was built around Remington — not the other way around. And without it, their way of life is unfeasible.

But as the national conversation about what gun control should look like drives a wedge between Americans with differing opinions, his small town is caught in the middle.

Because for 200 years, Ilion has made guns. And to stay afloat, Ilion has to keep making guns.

“Ilion helped build this country,” Lamica said. “And now Ilion needs help.”

When Remington Arms opened in Ilion in 1816, the U.S. was being led by its fourth president and there only were 19 states in the country.

Founder Eliphalet Remington started the business manufacturing hunting and sport firearms. The company later built pistols, rifles and muskets to arm soldiers during the Civil War, and it has made firearms for every war since. When business was slow, workers churned out sewing machines, typewriters and bicycles.

As Remington grew, it later moved its headquarters to Madison, North Carolina, but the Ilion facility remained. Just 20 years ago, nearly 3,000 people worked there.

“This whole place was built on firearms — 200 years’ worth of firearms,” said Jamie Rudwall, a representative for the United Mine Workers Association, the union that represents 680 of Remington’s Ilion workers.

Remington Arms did not respond to repeated email and telephone messages requesting comment for this article.

Being the birthplace of Remington is a point of pride, a cherished factoid and a timeless honor for Ilion’s residents. Everyone in town has either worked for Remington themselves, assembling firearms or making tools, or they know someone who has.

Kim Potter, a manager at Bare Arms Gun Shop in nearby Little Falls, said they don’t carry contemporary Remington guns in the small shop. The guns don’t sell, because everyone already has a way to get a company discount.

But special Remington firearms, particularly older or special edition ones with “Ilion, NY” stamped on the barrel, don’t sit on the shelves for very long.

A deep sentimentality is commonplace, Potter said.

“Someone will come in and say, ‘Oh, this is the same gun my grandpa hunted with,’ and then they have to buy it,” Potter said. “Everyone’s connected somehow. Everyone.”

In December 2012, a 20-year-old man shot and killed 26 people, including 20 children, at Sandy Hook Elementary School. He used a Bushmaster XM-15, a semi-automatic rifle and AR-15 style firearm.

It’s a line the Remington plant in Ilion produced at the time.

That mass shooting in Newtown, Conn., more than a hundred miles from Ilion, had an immediate and profound effect on the Remington workers in Ilion.

A month after the shooting in Connecticut, Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed into law the New York Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act — legislation that redefined what an “assault weapon” was, limited magazine capacities to a maximum of seven rounds and enhanced the background check process for people buying firearms and ammunition, among other things.

It’s been widely described as the toughest gun control law in the country. But in response to a mass shooting in another state, Remington employees argue that Cuomo damaged the livelihood of his own constituents in New York.

In 2013, Remington criticized the law and a year later moved production of two of its weapons from New York to its new plant in Huntsville, Alabama. Remington had about 1,300 workers in Ilion at the time.

“I’m a human being. I care about the little kids that got killed,” said Jeff Madison, president of the Local 717 union that represents Remington employees.

“But as a matter of fact, the SAFE Act is one of the reasons why (the Bushmaster line) got moved to Huntsville.”

In recent years, arms manufacturers have been protected from being held liable for crimes committed with their products by the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, a federal law signed in 2005 by then-President George W. Bush.

But last month, that immunity came to a screeching halt when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that families of those killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting could sue Remington in light of how the company marketed the weapon.

One of the plaintiffs, David Wheeler, whose 6-year-old son, Ben, was killed in the school shooting told NPR that the lawsuit is about holding Remington responsible for its ads and marketing.

In one ad, the families noted Remington promoted the Bushmaster with the language: “Forces of opposition, bow down. You are single-handedly outnumbered.”

The families wrote in their court filings that Remington “published promotional materials that promised ‘military-proven performance’ for a ‘mission-adaptable’ shooter in need of the ’ultimate combat weapons system.”

People in Ilion wonder how much Remington will be able to weather.

Remington Outdoors Company, the parent company of Remington Arms, filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2018, and more stores are looking to ban gun sales amid stricter laws in states across the country.

The Ilion plant spans a million square feet and more than 30 acres but the Remington of today isn’t as strong as its massive factory suggests.

The plant has cycled through furloughs and layoffs and rehiring in the last few years.

Repeated layoffs are disheartening, Madison, the union president, said.

But the workers in Ilion and the surrounding areas always go back when they’re rehired. For many, their fathers and their fathers’ fathers worked for Remington — working there is tradition, and it’s in their blood.

Remington has moved various lines out of state to Huntsville, and, on occasion, later moved them back to New York.

John Stephens, a Herkimer County legislator and former mayor of Ilion, said the company has had difficulty matching the quality when a line is moved out of state.

“They go somewhere else thinking that it’s going to be better,” Stephens said. “The workforce here is second to none.”

But while Remington employees in Ilion are fierce defenders of the Second Amendment, they too want to find a solution to America’s contemporary plague of violent mass shootings.

Jamie Rudwall, the UMWA representative and a third-generation Remington employee, said he and his co-workers are cautiously open to stricter background checks and a tighter vetting process for firearm purchases.

But the most important goal, at this point in time, is to keep Remington in New York, he and his colleagues said.

“We defend that because it’s our way of life,” Rudwall said. “We could be making washing machines there, and if somebody said we’ve got to quit making washing machines, we’d defend that, too.”


Georgie Silvarole is a backpack reporter for the USA TODAY Network New York. She can be reached at GSILVAROLE@Gannett.com or followed on Twitter: @gsilvarole

quote:

But last month, that immunity came to a screeching halt when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that families of those killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting could sue Remington in light of how the company marketed the weapon.

One of the plaintiffs, David Wheeler, whose 6-year-old son, Ben, was killed in the school shooting told NPR that the lawsuit is about holding Remington responsible for its ads and marketing.

In one ad, the families noted Remington promoted the Bushmaster with the language: “Forces of opposition, bow down. You are single-handedly outnumbered.”

The families wrote in their court filings that Remington “published promotional materials that promised ‘military-proven performance’ for a ‘mission-adaptable’ shooter in need of the ’ultimate combat weapons system.”

So this seems to absolve Nancy Lanza of any blame in having unsecured firearms accessible to her mentally unstable son. Makes perfect sense to me How can no blame be placed upon her and to a lesser degree his father?

There are many conflicting stories regarding his mental health treatment or lack of same. I seem to remember at that time there was a report that his mother discontinued one form of treatment as she felt she had a better way than the professionals.

quote:

Originally posted by shovelhead:

So this seems to absolve Nancy Lanza of any blame in having unsecured firearms accessible to her mentally unstable son. Makes perfect sense to me How can no blame be placed upon her and to a lesser degree his father?

There are many conflicting stories regarding his mental health treatment or lack of same. I seem to remember at that time there was a report that his mother discontinued one form of treatment as she felt she had a better way than the professionals.

Well, she’s dead now, and leftists whose true aim is disarmament have to have a target. A target with money at that. Personally, I see the lawsuit failing when all the facts are brought to bear, but if it succeeds it should in theory open the door for lawsuits against car manufacturers, beer and liquor makers, etc. ad nauseam until were all saved from the devils in the world.

I have kids too, and cowardly murderers that target them sicken me

“amid a soaring rise in mass shootings across the country”

I’m really tired of the media pounding this false narrative.

Yes. As usual, look a little deeper and it’s just a leftist hot piece.

quote:

Originally posted by Leemur:
“amid a soaring rise in mass shootings across the country”...

First thing that caught my eyes. Thread closed.

Remingtion has quality control problems.

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
Remingtion has quality control problems.

And that is the elephant in the room that the article, and perhaps the interviewees, ignored.

The other factors are certainly important, but poor quality 870s, model 700 rifles that discharge without the trigger’s being pulled, and the R51 fiasco are all things that contribute to people’s saying, “Um … no; no more Remingtons for me.”

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
Remingtion has quality control problems.

And that is the elephant in the room that the article, and perhaps the interviewees, ignored.

The other factors are certainly important, but poor quality 870s, model 700 rifles that discharge without the trigger’s being pulled, and the R51 fiasco are all things that contribute to people’s saying, “Um … no; no more Remingtons for me.”

This is what it all boils down to for me. I've got an 870 Special Purpose from around 1986 that, aside from the memories associated with it, is a very valuable part of my battery of arms. However, I won't even seriously consider purchasing anything made by the corporation calling themselves Remington in the last 20 years or so. As far as I'm concerned, Remington died a while back.It is a true shame and could have been avoided.

I'm also still upset that they bought and ruined Para Ordnance...

How many other's did they buy and ruin? Marlin comes to mind... Rohrbaugh... sigh