alt Hacker NewsI live in New York. A very old very famous manufacturer of firearms, Remington Arms, which employed hundreds of people and was the economic engine of its community was forced by the State of New York to shut down. That community cannot replace what was lost when the factory closed. Poverty, crime, drugs have moved in to the void.
You may be right that guns are are corrosive to a democratic society, that's an open debate. But the people who depended on that factory had the rug pulled and real harm was done without any regard to their welfare. And not everyone who depended on the factory worked there, deli owners and dry cleaners, these types of legitimate businesses are damaged when a major employer closes doors.
I suppose I relate this story to you just to show that, there are other people who think like you, guns are stigmatized, and it has a real human cost. We should not be flippant with our neighbor's well being, because we can't predict the turns of fate, one day it might be our turn.
Replies
> forced by the State of New York to shut down
Could you expand on this a little bit? Are you referring to the NY SAFE act? I'm seeing a few lines in their wiki page that suggest otherwise:
* In June 2007, a private equity firm, Cerberus Capital Management, acquired Remington Arms for $370 million, including $252 million in assumed debt.
* Remington filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in March 2018, having accumulated over $950 million in debt
* In July 2020, Remington again filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
You could justify the existence of any employer with that reasoning though, no matter how evil.
Any reasoning that can justify even an absurdly evil employer's existence is flawed.
straw man argument. This was about social stigma of weapons and you told a story about a factory being force closed and the surrounding community degrading by that.
We should not keep bad things alive just because jobs depend on it.
Your statement is not grounded in the truth. Remnington did not shut down because of government interference. They employed a grand total of 100 people in NY. Hardly the "economic engine of its community"
They shutdown because they sold 7.5 million guns that could fire without someone pulling the trigger and 60 minutes exposed it.
And you should know that their building is being converted into a 250,000 sqft AI data center. So it's not like employment is just lost in the area.