Berreta gun manufacturer leaving Maryland?, 500 year old gun maker weighing MD General Assembly actions, Berettas don’t bluff, James Bond gun, New machine gun in works

“Liberals, lacking accountability for their failed policies, and reason for their irrational fear of guns, blame guns and conservatives for gun violence.”…Citizen Wells

“Germans who wish to use firearms should join the SS or the SA – ordinary citizens don’t need guns, as their having guns doesn’t serve the State.”…Heinrich Himmler

“Berettas don’t bluff.”…Jeffrey Reh, general counsel for Beretta

From the Washington Post February 23, 2013.

“Beretta’s future in Maryland tied to state’s gun-control debate”

“On the production floor of Beretta USA sits a hulking new barrel-making machine ready to churn out the next object of obsession in America’s love-hate relationship with guns: a civilian version of a machine gun designed for special operations forces and popularized in the video game Call of Duty.

Beretta, the nearly 500-year-old family-owned company that made one of James Bond’s firearms, has already invested more than $1 million in the machine and has planned to expand its plant further in Prince George’s County to ramp up production.

But under an assault-weapons ban that advanced late last week in the Maryland General Assembly, experts say the gun would be illegal in the state where it is produced.

Now Beretta is weighing whether the rifle line, and perhaps the company itself, should stay in a place increasingly hostile toward its products. Its iconic 9mm pistol — carried by every U.S. soldier and scores of police departments — would also be banned with its high capacity, 13-bullet magazine.

“Why expand in a place where the people who built the gun couldn’t buy it?” said Jeffrey Reh, general counsel for Beretta.”

“In testimony this month in Annapolis, Reh, who oversees the plant, warned lawmakers to consider carefully the company’s future. Reh pointed to the last time Maryland ratcheted up gun restrictions in the 1990s: Beretta responded by moving its warehouse operation to Virginia.

“I think they thought we were bluffing” in the 1990s, Reh said. “But Berettas don’t bluff.””

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/md-politics/berettas-future-in-maryland-tied-to-states-gun-control-debate/2013/02/23/bcc56c62-7776-11e2-95e4-6148e45d7adb_story.html