Colt shuts plant
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- The president of one of the nation's oldest gun manufacturers closed down his Connecticut factory Thursday morning and bused 400 of his workers to the state Capitol so they could personally urge lawmakers not to pass gun control legislation that they say could risk their livelihoods.
Dennis Veilleux, president of the Hartford-based Colt's Manufacturing Co., said even though he has spoken with legislators and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy's staff about his trepidations several times, he believes they don't truly understand the financial ramifications of the legislation being proposed in the wake of the deadly Dec. 14 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown.
"These are the faces of the jobs at Colt," Veilleux said in an interview with The Associated Press while riding on a bus back to the factory. "Each of these people represents other people in the state. They represent the community and, in a lot of cases, they're the breadwinners of their families. And more and more, manufacturing jobs are hard to come by."
Colt has been operating in Connecticut for the past 175 years.
"If we ban this product in the state where we make it, our customers will take their business to another brand," he said. "When we start to get erosion of our customers, we lose our market share."
"Our customers don't want to support the state of New York. So our customers aren't going to want to support the state of Connecticut," he said. "And our association is so strong with the state of Connecticut, that it's inevitable that it's going to begin to erode."