U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth spent last week touring Smith & Wesson's factory floor in Maryville, Tennessee, firing weapons on a range and praising the gunmaker's commitment to American manufacturing — a visit that pointedly skipped the company's original home in Springfield, Massachusetts, where roughly 1,000 workers still forge and assemble firearms today.
The Pentagon posted video of the visit on its social media, and Smith & Wesson reposted the footage, according to MassLive. The video shows Smith & Wesson President and CEO Mark P. Smith leading Hegseth on a tour of a showroom and the factory floor before the group headed to a target range to shoot. On the audio, Hegseth voiced his belief in the Second Amendment and his desire for the Pentagon to lean more heavily on American manufacturers.
Hegseth described the stop as part of his self-styled Arsenal of Freedom Tour, a nationwide push that has already taken him to Boeing in St. Louis, Saronic in Austin, Sierra Nevada Corporation in Dayton, and Strategic Command in Omaha, according to the U.S. Department of War. The tour's stated focus is cutting acquisition red tape and boosting domestic military production — themes Hegseth has carried from defense contractors to manufacturers like Smith & Wesson.
A Visit With Recruitment Attached
Hegseth's October 17 stop in Tennessee wasn't limited to the factory floor. He also administered the military oath of enlistment to 95 recruits at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville that same day, tying the plant visit to a recruitment push, as reported by The Patriot Oasis. The dual stop let Hegseth link military enlistment directly to the domestic manufacturing message at the heart of his broader tour.
In the video of the Smith & Wesson visit, Hegseth expressed hope that the Pentagon could do more business with the company in the future. That hope runs up against reality: Smith & Wesson remains a relatively small player in defense contracting, holding a 2025 firearms contract worth just $73,500 that is set to expire at the end of this year, per usaspending.gov, as reported by MassLive. The company lost its bid for the Army's flagship handgun contract back in January 2017, when the Modular Handgun System award — worth $580 million — went to SIG Sauer's P320 platform instead of the Smith & Wesson and General Dynamics offering, according to Guns & Ammo.
The Springfield Roots Left Off the Tour
What the Pentagon video didn't show was Smith & Wesson's other home. Smith & Wesson was established in Connecticut in 1852 and later moved its headquarters to Springfield, Massachusetts; it only completed its move to a new $125 million corporate headquarters and manufacturing facility in Maryville in October 2023, with 750 jobs moving there in total, 550 of them from Massachusetts, according to Fox Business. The exit began in September 2021, after Massachusetts lawmakers introduced legislation banning state manufacturers from producing semi-automatic rifles and high-capacity magazines — products that made up more than 60% of the company's revenue at the time, according to a PR Newswire release at the time citing CEO Mark Smith, who said the proposed bans left the company no alternative.
Smith & Wesson didn't fully abandon Massachusetts, though. The company still employs about 1,000 people at its Springfield operation, where workers on Roosevelt Avenue handle forging, metalworking, machining, finishing, assembly of 1911-style handguns, revolver assembly and research and development, per MassLive. The company is also installing 20 new computer-controlled manufacturing machines there by the end of 2026, and it has established ranges and a training academy in Tennessee alongside its new headquarters. The split footprint echoes the company's 2021 announcement of its Tennessee move: roughly 1,000 employees remained at its 575,000-square-foot Springfield facility, and the headquarters moved later, according to The Daily Times.
Smith & Wesson wasn't the only firearms company to make that move. Troy Industries relocated its headquarters from West Springfield to Clarksville, Tennessee, in 2021, citing what it called an increasingly hostile regulatory environment for arms makers in Massachusetts, part of a broader pattern of legacy gunmakers shifting to states with more permissive firearm laws, as reported by CBS News.
Smith & Wesson Still Has Skin in Massachusetts Politics
Despite the relocation, Smith & Wesson hasn't walked away from Massachusetts politics. The company contributed $50,000 — the largest single corporate donation — to the campaign behind Question 9 on the November 2026 Massachusetts ballot, a referendum seeking to repeal the state's comprehensive 2024 gun control overhaul, known as Chapter 135, according to CommonWealth Beacon. Gun-rights groups gathered signatures for the challenge following the Supreme Court's Bruen ruling, the outlet reported.```The company is also tangled up in federal litigation over the state's gun sales rules. In September 2026, the U.S. Department of Justice joined a lawsuit in the First Circuit Court of Appeals arguing that Massachusetts' safety and design regulations unconstitutionally ban commercial sales of popular handguns, including Smith & Wesson models, according to Courthouse News. State law mandates melting-point and trigger-pull standards that exclude many of the nation's best-selling sidearms, the outlet reported.
An April order could allow service members to carry personal firearms on military bases. Base commanders may still deny such requests, but they must document any denials. Hegseth has cited active-shooter incidents at Pensacola and Fort Stewart as justification for easing the base carry rules.
