Clai Lasher-Sommers alternates between tears and fury when talking about the production of
weapons in his home state of New Hampshire, one of the main vectors of this very profitable industry in the United States.
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Speaking a short walk from the house where she was shot with a hunting rifle by an abusive stepfather when she was 13, the survivor-turned-activist said she plans to move, just to get away from gunmakers.
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“I don’t want to be around them and the damage they perpetuate every day. I want them to shut down, but that’s not going to happen,” he stressed.
New Hampshire, the small northeastern state that produces the most firearms in the country since 2015has funneled millions of weapons into an already flooded domestic market in a nation ravaged by an epidemic of deaths from
Firearms.
Recent tragedies are unlikely to interrupt that flow in a state where a legislator can walk the halls of the legislature with his gun,
Guns are not necessarily to blame for deadly shootings, and companies in the sector generate thousands of jobs.
“It’s definitely a David versus Goliath situation,” Melissa Rigazio, another local anti-gun violence activist, said of efforts to confront the industry.
One of the largest gun manufacturers in the state is Sig Sauer. (Reference image)
“The arms manufacturers are largely responsible for what is happening,” he said.
One of the state’s largest gunmakers is Sig Sauer, a company based in the city of Newington whose plant, flying the American flag, is surrounded by “no trespassing” signs.
The other local heavyweight is Ruger, about a two-hour drive away in Newport.
Neither of the two companies agreed to AFP requests for an interview or a visit to their respective factories.
Between both, those two firms produced more than 1.7 million rifles and pistols in New Hampshire in 2020a year in which firearm purchases skyrocketed due to the covid-19 pandemic, mass protests and a controversial presidential election.
No restrictions
![AMP Weapon](https://www.eltiempo.com/images/1x1.png)
The state of New Hampshire produces the most firearms in the country as of 2015.
Just over eight million pistols and rifles left the plant in the state between 2015 and 2020about 17% of the national total, according to the most recent government figures.
While giants like Texas (south) have more businesses related to
weapons, New Hampshire is the state with the most people employed in that industry in relation to the number of inhabitants, as well as in production and taxes linked to it, according to the industry group NSSF.
The state, whose coat of arms reads “Live Free or Die”, has long been home to numerous arms manufacturers.
A key factor that distinguishes New Hampshire from its neighbors New York (east) or Massachusetts (northeast) is the absence of restrictions on the possession of weapons.
Half of the 50 states in the country allow those who have a license to buy
weapons to walk around with them in public without special permission.
Arms manufacturers installed in states that have tightened control standards have moved to others that are friendlier to this industry.
Mike Hammond, legislative adviser to the advocacy group Gun Owners of America, said that’s what happened in the eastern state of Connecticut after the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in the town of Newton, in which 20 children were killed.
“After Newton Connecticut banned certain types of firearms being produced there. Guess what? The firearms manufacturer left Connecticut.”
According to Hammond, although New Hampshire has made millions of guns, gun violence occurs primarily in other parts of the United States.
‘The guns didn’t kill my son’
![Texas shooting](https://www.eltiempo.com/images/1x1.png)
Families of the victims of the Texas school shooting in May 2022. (File)
One of New Hampshire’s tragic gunshot victims was Amy Innarelli’s 22-year-old son, Chandler, who was shot to death in 2020 while waiting for his girlfriend and young son.
Dressed in an orange T-shirt with a smiling photo of her son at a vigil against gun violence in Manchester, the state’s largest city, Amy Innarelli sees the problem as complex and requiring a complex response.
“The weapons did not kill my son, a person did,” he said.
For Lasher-Sommers, on the other hand, it is undeniable that access to weapons is at the core of the problem.
“It’s the gun, it’s the gun,” the 65-year-old woman told AFP firmly at her home in Westmoreland, a small town near the Vermont border.
At the other end of the spectrum, John Burt, a New Hampshire MP who is dedicated to fighting firearms restrictions, wore a revolver-shaped brooch on his coat lapel and a holstered pistol in his pocket. belt when interviewed by AFP.
“Manufacturers help us remain a pro-gun state,” he said. And he added: “We don’t want them to leave.” The local parliament does not allow people to enter sessions with water or food. “But I can have my gun,” Burt pointed out with a laugh.
AFP
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