$38 Million for Gun Companies

It looks like one mid-state Pennsylvania Republican is putting in a request for some state economic investment dollars to go for luring gun companies to the Commonwealth from anti-gun states. Back in February, several lawmakers at the state level started writing letters to gun companies in unfriendly states asking them to consider Pennsylvania.

I’m not really going to comment on the use of millions of taxpayer dollars to bring gun companies in since I don’t know much about the program. In the article, the third paragraph describes the $38 million as matching grants that sound like handouts, but then eight paragraphs later, the program is described as a loan program.

Kahr has already signed a contract with Pike County, PA authorities as of mid-June to start the process of getting permits and engineers out to a 620-acre business park that they can snatch up for $2 million. They’ve apparently already hired many of the firms needed to seal the deal, and they started a search for someone to oversee the process. (Oddly, even though the company was already starting the process of securing the Pennsylvania property, they apparently had a contest on Facebook asking fans what state they should move to.)

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5 thoughts on “$38 Million for Gun Companies”

  1. The Taxpayer is on the hook either way. It’s not a proper function of any government to pick winners and losers, even if we happen to like the winners for other reasons.

    1. I’m not a fan of either use of tax dollars, but I admit that I’m less likely to get angry if it’s a loan program that isn’t going to be a loss for taxpayers if the company stops paying. If the money comes back, I’m not thrilled with such a program, but I’d rather focus efforts on fighting programs where the money is just handed out freely or the loans are given without any effort to secure that the taxpayers will be repaid. As I said, I don’t know enough about the supposed program since it is described in several different ways in one article to offer useful commentary. That’s also why I mentioned one gun company starting the expansion process without use of such funds.

  2. Do they actually have a $38 million surplus? Or is the state going to take on debt so they can make a grant/loan?

    1. Do I need to bold the paragraph where I said I’m not commenting on the source of the funds because I don’t understand the program and it is described in conflicting ways in the story?

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