The company for sure has a degree of automation and professional engineering integrated into its processes and future plans. Just as the state has legislatively decided to exclude the manufacture of the majority of S&W's products from their jurisdiction, S&W has planned for continued future operation. The officers and executives have a fiduciary responsibility to the stockholders to operate that way.
It really doesn't and shouldn't matter to the operators and those planning the future of SWBI if Mass. or some individuals don't like their products. Clearly, the officers and stockholders believe in the products offered for sale and their opinion differs from that of the state. I have a felling that the majority of SWBI stockholders don't live in Mass. I think it's logical for the company to rely on its patents and established manufacturing processes and supply chain relationships to continue its business. The state legislation has crippled the company from doing that in its current location and it is a judgement call on the part of the executives to find governmentally conducive location where that can happen. I'm certain that the talent and resources for many product lines overlap. Establishing another location in which to manufacture the Mass. illegal products is a needless duplication of those resources.
The handwriting on the wall says that this area doesn't like S&W products. IMO deciding to remain in Springfield would be like deciding to build a cocaine business in the US in 1914. I feel that it is a best practice to engage in your business where it is legal to do so. I also feel that many of the current and contemplated laws regarding so called "assault weapons" are based on faulty ideas and logical reasoning predicts their having no real effect.
I also feel that some legislators in the state are being a disingenuous. While proclamations about potential deaths due to "assault weapons" are easy to find and apparently led to this new law, the state has no particular views on a certain company in the Pittsfield area. Said company makes weapons far more deadly than rifles and pistols.
Disclosure: I don't live in Mass. (I live in NJ) nor I don't work for Smith, but I do work as a contractor in the Boston area for a company that deals with Homeland.
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