Ruger Moves Corporate HQ from CT to Gun-Friendly North Carolina
Reports indicate that Ruger has shifted its headquarters from the state where it was founded to one more closely aligned with the Second Amendment.
Famously founded in 1949 in a small red barn in Southport, Connecticut, by William B. Ruger and Alexander McCormick Sturm, the now publicly traded firearms giant has moved its headquarters to Mayodan, North Carolina. The move, which was official in January, was confirmed by the Hartford Business Journal this week.
Ruger has long had a footprint in the Tar Heel State, with Bill Ruger attending the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in the 1930s before he went to work for the U.S. arsenal at Springfield Armory in World War II. The company announced its 191,000 sq. ft. manufacturing plant at Mayodan in 2013. Since then, Ruger has added a 224,000 sq. ft. distribution center next to the plant, making Mayodan the largest of its operational hubs. When the company acquired Marlin Firearms in 2020, it moved the assets and assembly line from Huntsville, Alabama, to Mayodan.
Other Ruger plants include Newport, New Hampshire; Prescott, Arizona; Earth City, Missouri; and Hebron, Kentucky.
When it comes to gun rights, North Carolina doesn’t have permitless carry – although it has been approved in past legislative sessions – but the state does have a robust “shall-issue” concealed carry scheme with over 900,000 permits in circulation in 2025. Importantly, North Carolina does not have mandatory gun lock laws, a ban on “assault weapons,” or “red flag” gun seizure laws, all of which Connecticut residents suffer.
The Connecticut legislature is nearing a ban on Glock-style firearms this year, which would include the new and popular Ruger RXM. Connecticut has a state ban on binary triggers and bump stocks.
Further, Connecticut has a gun industry liability law that is somewhat at odds with the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, allowing controversial “predicate exception” lawsuits against gun industry members when it comes to the sale or marketing of firearms.
In terms of NFA items such as suppressors, machine guns, and short-barreled firearms, North Carolina had more than 252,000 registered in 2024, one of the highest totals in the country and nearly three times the number in Connecticut (93,297).
Although North Carolina has had a Democratic governor since 2017, he has been balanced by a majority-Republican legislature that has no sign of turning blue in the near future. Of North Carolina’s 14 members of Congress, 10 are from the GOP, as are both of its current U.S. Senators, Tom Tillis and Ted Budd. By comparison, all of Connecticut’s lawmakers on Capitol Hill in Washington are Dems, including some very rabid anti-gun champions such as Senators Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal.
Ruger isn’t the only gun company to leave Connecticut in recent years for more 2A climes, as Stag Arms moved to Cheyenne, Wyoming, while PTR Industries shifted to South Carolina. Mossberg, whose headquarters are in North Haven, Connecticut, makes most of its guns at a facility in Eagle Pass, Texas.