On July 27, 2014, Beretta announced it is moving all manufacturing operations from MD southward to TN.  They are far from the first to go.  Kahr Arms left NY for PA.  PTR Industries left CT and American Tactical Imports left NY – both for SC.  And, Remington Arms, O.F. Mossberg & Sons, Ruger, Colt, Stag Arms announced expansions in southern states, including Alabama, Florida, and Texas.  It’s  not an uncommon theme in 2014.  In 2013, we saw the rise of massive legislation in CT, NY, and MD.  Several small to mid-sized companies made moves that garnered at least local headlines.  The larger manufacturers, including Beretta, started announcing expansions and individual product shifts.  But 2014 has now become a year for shifting entire manufacturing operations out of the northeast to primarily southern states. The announcement also follows headline after headline touting the economic incentives offered to manufacturers by states from NC to WY that equate to jobs, ground-up construction, and supply-chain opportunities.  Beretta’s first announcement was a $45 million expansion involving 300 jobs.  Magpul Industries shift out of CO to WY/TX involved 200 jobs, an estimated $85 million in local economic activity, and up to 400 supply-chain jobs.  Sturm, Ruger & Co. is investing $26 million in NC and creating 470 jobs in its first major expansion in 25-years.  Some 18 months after the legislative dominos started going down, analysis after analysis has made deadlines to cover the industry with unprecedented column inch.  But, perhaps no one has said it as well as Mr. Reh, “Why expand in a place where the people who built the gun couldn’t buy it?”  If the 20th Century saw the First Great Migration and the Second Great Migration of labor flowing to northern industrial cities, we might call this the 21st Century’s Great Labor Vacuum as the southern states suck the skilled labor of firearms manufacturing out of the northeast corridor.