The American gun industry continues to move out of New England and into the southern U.S., with Ruger quietly moving its headquarters out of Connecticut earlier this year.
Ruger news @ TFB:
Ruger was founded in Connecticut in 1949 and has had a presence there ever since, despite its factories being spread out around the U.S., with manufacturing in Newport, New Hampshire, Prescott, Arizona and Mayodan, North Carolina. The Connecticut location made sense, even as the factories spread out; New England was long a solid base for America’s firearms industry. But that has changed in recent years. The gun industry is moving out of the region, and Ruger’s headquarters has followed that trend.
Now, Ruger has moved their HQ to Mayodan, the same town where they have their major manufacturing operations. Their employees in Connecticut haven’t lost their jobs and haven’t had to move; there were only about 20 workers left in Connecticut anyway, between their offices around Southport and Enfield, with many other front-office workers now based elsewhere in the U.S.
The Ruger factory in Southport, Connecticut, stopped making firearms in 1999, which meant that there was a lot of empty, unused space at the facility anyway. Now Ruger should be able to turn that empty space into money.
There are still plenty of firearms operations in New England; Colt, Charter Arms and Mossberg all still do business in Connecticut. But there is no denying a shift has been going on for a few years now, as Ruger’s move falls into a long-term trend. With state governments growing increasingly unfriendly in New England, there may be more gunmakers behind them.
