Businesses may not be able to vote, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not responsive to policies enacted by lawmakers that could hurt them. This usually revolves around tax policy and/or regulations. But other policies can have a similar effect. And Beretta, a gun manufacturer based in Prince George’s County, Maryland, is a perfect example of that.
The Maryland legislature passed and, last week, Gov. Martin O’Malley (D-MD) signed several restrictive gun control measures into law, including a ban on high-capacity magazines and certain “assault weapons.” And, in response to these new laws, Berettaannounced plans to move its operations to Tennessee:
The culture clash escalated after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., where Adam Lanza killed 27 people, including 20 first-graders. In the political furor that followed, Maryland banned 45 types of assault weapons and put in place tough fingerprint, photo identification and training requirements —restrictions viewed by Beretta as the legislative equivalent of a declaration of war on its operations.
Last week the gunmaker fired back, announcing that it will move its manufacturing operations before the Free State tries to impose even more onerous restrictions.
Instead, it will make its weapons in Tennessee, where an un-Maryland type of law went into effect this summer: Residents without carry permits can now keep loaded guns in their cars.
O’Malley may think that taking a hard, anti-gun line may help his 2016 Democratic presidential nomination chances. But these new laws aren’t going to have much of an effect on gun violence, considering that so-called “assault weapons” aren’t used in most mass shootings.
What’s more, the availability of high-capacity magazines, as a January 2013 memo from the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the Department of Justice, points out, makes such a ban almost pointless.
So, the relatively small town of Accokeek, where the gun manufacturer is currently based, is out 160 jobs. And Beretta joins a growing list of gunmakers that have either decided to uproot their operations or expanded in a friendlier climate.
