HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A measure designating Samuel Colt’s 19th-century gun factory in Connecticut as a national park has been signed into law by President Barack Obama.
State elected officials have hailed the project as a way to boost one of Hartford’s poorest neighborhoods and honor the revolver as a marvel of manufacturing.
Notably absent from the celebrating is Colt’s Manufacturing Co. The company remains based in Connecticut, where it and other gun makers have said they were left feeling unwelcome by a strict gun control law adopted after of the 2012 Newtown elementary school shooting.
A gun industry association withdrew its support for the park project. Executives at Colt have declined to discuss the project.
