Will be used as a meeting place for the Bloomberg anti-gun crowd.
Via Guns
Congress approved transforming the former Colt Factory in Hartford into a National Park — the first in Connecticut, a state that recently passed some of the nation’s toughest gun laws — in order to boost the economy in one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods and honor the revolver as a marvel of manufacturing, but the dedication notably lacks support from the historic company itself and industry groups.
The move marks the end of a decade-long campaign by state lawmakers to convert the 260-acre Coltsville reservation, established by firearms inventor Samuel Colt in 1855 to produce his signature revolvers, into a federal park. The measure was folded into the $577 billion Congressional defense package passed on Capitol Hill earlier this month. As part of the mammoth bill, 14 National Parks like the Coltsville site were either authorized or, in the case of the Gettysburg and Vicksburg National Military Parks, expanded.
State Rep. John Larson, a democrat and principal backer of the bill, told the Associated Press that the nation’s newest park will detail the site’s historic significance and could also provide a forum to discuss current day issues, such as gun violence.[…]
However, Colt’s Manufacturing itself, which left the old factory in 1994, has been cool to the project.
Colt’s chief executive officer, Dennis Veilleux, has been quiet on the move by gun control advocates to establish a museum from the company’s historic former building. Further, the company, battling liquidity issues, is not currently involved with the park effort.
In 2013, Veilleux gave his employees in Connecticut the day off to protest the state’s new assault weapon’s ban and has been courted by pro-gun regions to move the company’s remaining West Hartford facility, which employs over 400 workers, out of the state for good.