Smith & Wesson to move headquarters from Massachusetts to Tennessee
CBSN
Smith & Wesson is moving its headquarters from Massachusetts to Tennessee, citing the southern state's "unwavering support of the Second Amendment" as well as its lower cost of living.
The decision to depart New England was "an extremely difficult and emotional" one, Mark Smith, the gun-maker's president and CEO, said Thursday in a statement. The company, based in Springfield, Massachusetts, since 1852, will spend $125 million on the relocation, it said.
As many as 750 jobs will move from Massachusetts, Connecticut and Missouri to Maryville, Tennessee, by the summer of 2023, according to Smith & Wesson.
Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.