Beretta USA Threatening To Leave Maryland Over Gun Control Legislation

Beretta USA is threatening to leave Maryland, and hundreds of jobs with it. The major American gun manufacturer is angry about recent gun control proposal. Beretta USA does not want to exist in a location where employees who make the gun can’t actually buy the weapon.

The gun manufacturer is a family owned company that has been I existence for almost 500 years, according to the Washington Post. Beretta USA had already committed more than $1 million for a civilian version of a machine gun designed for special operations forces, The Blaze notes.

The gun company had planned to expand its large plant in Prince George’s County even further to meet production demands. An assault weapons ban introduced in the Maryland General Assembly last leek would make the new weapon illegal in the state.

The classic Beretta 9mm pistol is carried by every American soldiers and by a multitude of police officers across the country. The iconic firearm could also become illegal under the proposed high-capacity magazine ban. The Beretta 9mm has a 13-bullet magazine.

Second Amendment groups have noted many times a belief that a high-capacity magazine ban would do nothing to reduce gun violence. A shooter of average experience can typically empty and reload three 10-bullet magazines in far less than a single minute.

During testimony in Annapolis earlier this month Beretta USA general counsel Jeffrey Reh warned politicians to consider the company’s future in the stated very carefully. Reh had this to say about pending gun control proposals:

“Why expand I a place where people who built the gun couldn’t buy it? I think they thought we were bluffing [in the 90s] but Berettas don’t bluff.”

When Maryland tightened gun control laws during the 1990s, Beretta move its warehouse operations to Virginia.

What do you think about the gun control debate and Berettas threat to take jobs out of Maryland?

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