Harsh Gun Control Law Kill More Jobs
By Katie Pavlich
TownHall.com
Over the past two years
we've seen numerous firearm manufacturing companies
leave liberal states with new gun control laws.
Maryland is the latest to state to face tough
consequences for its new harsh and irrational gun
control law. Beretta, a firearms company that has
been in the state for decades, is
headed to Tennessee with hundreds of jobs in
tow.
Beretta U.S.A. announced Tuesday that company
concerns over a strict gun-control law enacted in
Maryland last year have made it necessary to move
its weapons making out of the state to Tennessee.
The well-known gun maker said it will move to a new
production facility it is building in the Nashville
suburb of Gallatin that is set to open in mid-2015.
Beretta general manager Jeff Cooper said that a
sweeping gun-control measure that was passed last
year initially contained provisions that would have
prohibited the Italian gun maker from being able to
produce, store or even import into Maryland the
products that the company sells around the world.
While the legislation was changed to remove some of
those provisions, Cooper said the possibility that
such restrictions could be reinstated left the
company worried about maintaining a firearm-making
factory in Maryland.
"While we had originally planned to use the
Tennessee facility for new equipment and for
production of new product lines only, we have
decided that it is more prudent from the point of
view of our future welfare to move the Maryland
product lines in their entirety to the new Tennessee
facility," Cooper said in a news release announcing
the move.
Last year Maryland Governor Martin O'Malley signed
into law extreme gun control measures despite strong
objections from the public. Currently Beretta
employs 400 people in Maryland. According to the
National
Shooting Sports Foundation, overall the firearms
industry employs more than 200,000 people, has an
economic impact of over $33 billion each year and
provides the federal government with more than $4
billion in excise taxes each year.