Remington Arms lays off 122 workers

Remington Arms Company announced Wednesday that it had laid off 122 workers from its manufacturing plant in Ilion, NY.

Remington officials say that the cuts are due to a decline in demand and increasing inventories.

The firearms manufacturer’s announcement comes just a few weeks after Outdoor sporting goods and firearms retailer Gander Mountain announced that it was declaring bankruptcy due to lower demand.

Remington has faced quality control issues and recalls in recent years.

The legendary Remington model 700 rifles faced a massive recall after a class action lawsuit claimed that the rifles could fire without manipulating the trigger.

A proposed nationwide Settlement has been preliminarily approved in a class action lawsuit involving certain Remington firearms. The class action lawsuit claims that trigger mechanisms with a component part known as a trigger connector are defectively designed and can result in accidental discharges without the trigger being pulled.

The R51 pistol faced a complete recall and redesign in 2014 as the pistol had difficulty feeding, firing and was difficult to re-assemble after cleaning.

Remington issued a statement acknowledging problems with the trouble-plagued R51 9mm pistol, and offering consumers an opportunity to trade in their pistols for new production models.

Most recently, the new Remington RP9 9mm pistol has been widely criticized for design flaws that result in feeding and function issues.

While things can be excused when a gun company jumps into a new design, the fact that this pistol went to market with two very identifiable and repeatable flaws that would have shown up in even limited testing show a complete lack of respect by Remington for its customers.

Gun owners have long memories when a firearms company fails to live up to their expectations and Remington may be suffering the consequences of rushing things to market, not investing enough in quality control and misunderstanding their customers.