Posted on 03/03/2006 4:15:17 PM PST by Graybeard58
SPRINGFIELD - Several Illinois gun manufacturers said Wednesday they will pack up and leave Illinois if state lawmakers approve a ban on assault weapons.
The threats came as a House panel approved legislation to ban the weapons, even though the proposal's prospects appear bleak in the Senate following comments earlier this week by Senate President Emil Jones, D-Chicago.
In a press conference before the House Executive Committee's 9-3 vote in favor the ban, the gun makers said they would pull up stakes and take 750 jobs with them if the ban is OK'd.
"If this passes, we're out of town," said Dennis Reese, co-owner of Springfield Armory in Geneseo, one of four gun makers located in the Rock River Valley town of 6,400 residents.
"Our only course of action would be moving out of state," added Mark Westrom, president of ArmaLite Inc., another Geneseo gun manufacturer.
The sparring comes after Gov. Rod Blagojevich said in his State of the State speech last month that reinstating the expired federal ban on certain kinds of military-style weapons was one of his top priorities in this spring's legislative session.
But Jones, in comments earlier in the week, said he doubts the measure will come up for a vote in the Senate because it is too contentious.
Despite its apparently dim prospects, state Rep. Edward Acevedo, D-Chicago, pushed the legislation through the House Executive Committee. The measure could come up for a vote on the House floor this week.
An attempt last year to move the ban through the House failed to receive enough votes.
Gun makers and their state lawmakers argued that they operate legal businesses that are subject to tough state and federal requirements.
Westrom said the state should concentrate on catching criminals, rather than on banning guns.
"The arms manufacturers of Illinois and their customers are not the problem," Westrom said.
Along with Springfield Armory and ArmaLite, other companies involved in fighting the ban include Lewis Machine & Tool of Moline, Les Baer Custom Inc. of Hillsdale and Rock River Arms Inc. of Colona.
State lawmakers on both sides of aisle vowed to help block the ban.
"The State of Illinois has almost become an enemy of my district," said state Sen. Mike Jacobs, D-East Moline.
"We will fight this with everything we have," added state Sen. Todd Sieben, R-Geneseo.
The legislation is House Bill 2414.
If it were not for my elderly parents I would consider leaving now and heading for Tennessee or North Carolina. I'm a southern girl at heart anyway.
You'd like Montana better than Texas.
I'll bet you would be more than welcome in Nevada....Part of the old west...
Brand new Industrial park being built about 15 miles east of Reno:
Tahoe/Reno Regional Industrial Park
Lance Gilman, Developer
106,000 acres---Yes, I typed 106 Thousand acres. Right next to I-80.
Weather cannot be any worse than Illinois.
Brand new development.
Don't have the number at hand, but they are advertising lots. Google them???
Greetings Graybeard58:
Will the last taxpayer out of this Marxist utopia kindly shut off the lights?
Cheers,
OLA
Wellll.. If you have to.... come on. But between, "open borders" to the South, Katrina refugees from the East, California refugees who don't know enough to stop in Nevada and Arizona, (given Nv's and Az senators, understandable) A few DamnYankees more or less won't matter. LOL
Well take those jobs out in SW Washington state, timber jobs are going away hand over fist.
This is the same Ilinois that has a "World Shooting Sports Complex" massively under construction in Sparta, just outside St. Louis. What was the ATA thinking when the agreed to move the Grand American Trapshoot to Illinois?
You're welcome anytime.
unarmed peasants are easier to control
Good for these guys. The threat of the ban in '94 showed a few supposedly solid manufacturers to be little more than quislings.
Imagine if it gets so bad that businesses become so mobile they develope their ability to take their HQ buildings and facility infrastructure too.
Well, we have all the others that stay in the Siberian like Northeast. If I owned Remington, Winchester, etc. I would have pulled out of the NE long ago.
good.
they should also refuse to sell guns to agencies of governments which ban the civilian ownership of their products.
tit for tat, sauce for the goose, eye for an eye.
ping
I spent the last half-decade in Memphis, and prior to that considered myself a Texan just temporarily transplanted away from happier times down around the Cleburne and Ft Worth area. Yep, I miss the mid-south and Texas.
But I've found a place with much of the southern hospitality and character of Dixie, with equally beautiful scenic vistas, and far fewer distractions from unworthy neighbors- and in a solidly republican *red* state too.
Care to check it out?
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