It can be tough being a small town with one large employer. Just one shift of the economic winds — a nimble new competitor, a technological advance, or just a change in consumer tastes — and that large employer could be gone.
But what if that one large employer still makes a popular line of products that happens not to be popular with the Powers That Be?
Welcome to Ilion, New York, population 7,646, and the soon-to-be-former home of Remington's oldest firearms factory.
Eliphalet Remington made his first flintlock rifle there more than 200 years ago as a young man of 23. The company he founded there lasted until it was forced into bankruptcy and broken up in 2020. One of the two companies still bearing his name, Remington Arms, made the long-expected announcement that the historic Ilion plant will close for good in March, taking its 270 jobs with it.
Remington made the decision public in December and the closure date, March 17, was made known this week.
A decade ago, the plant — which opened in 1826 — employed more than 1,300 people.
Mayor John Stephens told the Daily Mail, "It's like the town is losing its soul. It's almost like losing a family member. That's the thing that people are struggling with, the nostalgia, the history. It feels like we are losing the identity of the town."
As for the plant itself, Stephens said, "It's just going to deteriorate over time and then I have an abandoned factory that's falling into itself."
It's all incredibly sad but maybe it didn't have to be this way.
The tragedy began in the most tragic of places, Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012. There, a madman with "severe and deteriorating internalized mental health problems" shot and murdered 26 children and staffers. One of the killer's three weapons was a Remington AR-15-based Bushmaster rifle. Then, in 2019, the Supreme Court allowed to stand a New York Supreme Court decision that a lawsuit against Remington could proceed, resulting in a $73 million settlement and Remington's bankruptcy the following year. The plaintiffs argued that "Remington was negligent by selling a combat-style firearm to the public in the first place."
That same Los Angeles Times story reported, "The plaintiffs aren’t looking to squeeze money out of Remington. They want to have the gunmaker held legally responsible for the carnage inflicted with its product." The lawsuit was about shutting down an industry serving a constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms.
Maybe it would have made sense for Remington to continue investing in Ilion, even after bankruptcy and new ownership under RemArms LLC. But "Republican leaders," the Albany Times Union reported in December, "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."
Stefanik said that the move resulted from “failed unconstitutional gun bans.” Walczyk added that the state’s Gun Industry Liability Law, which allows gunmakers to be sued if they “knowingly or recklessly create, maintain or contribute” to a dangerous condition with their firearms, pushed Remington out of New York.
Remington explained at the time, "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."
Ilion would be happy to support and welcome new investments from Remington, but the town's 7,600 people didn't get much say in what happened in Albany or at the Supreme Court.
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