Feeling unwelcome in blue states, gun companies move to red ones

So after years of flirting with the idea, Smith announced last September that Smith & Wesson was pulling up stakes and moving its headquarters from Massachusetts to Tennessee.

Deciding to leave was “extremely difficult,” Smith told investors, but “we feel that we have been left with no other alternative.”

At least 20 firearms, ammunition and gun accessory companies — including some of the industry’s biggest names, such as Beretta and Remington Arms — have moved headquarters or shifted production from traditionally Democratic blue states to Republican red ones over the past decade, relocating thousands of jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars in investment amid the nation’s sharpening divide over guns. The companies were enticed by tax breaks and the promise of cheaper labor. But the biggest factor often was the push for stricter gun laws in many of the Democratic-leaning states.

“They’re going where they’re wanted,” said John Harris, a Nashville attorney and executive director of the Tennessee Firearms Association.