ILION, N.Y. -- The Remington Arms factory is at the center of this small village, straddled midway between Albany and Syracuse in the Mohawk Valley, towering over nearly every corner of the small downtown.
It may also be at the center of Friday's mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
A Bushmaster .223 semi-automatic rifle was among the three powerful weapons crazed gunman Adam Lanza used in his bloody rampage.
And it was the Bushmaster -- a semi-automatic, military--style assault rifle - that Lanza fired to massacre 20 schoolchildren and six adult staffers.
Manufacture of the rifle was moved to Remington's Ilion factory in March 2011, providing a morbid link between this tight-knit town of just over 8,000 and the postcard-perfect New England community of Newtown.
Machinist Carl Bovay, 46, said if Lanza's weapon was manufactured after production moved to Ilion, there is roughly a one-in-three chance that he worked on the gun. The thought, he said, has weighed heavily on him and a handful of colleagues.
"I keep telling myself that I did not make that barrel," said Bovay, who made a point to mention that he does not personally own any firearms.
Gun manufacturer devastated following massacre - StamfordAdvocate
It may also be at the center of Friday's mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
A Bushmaster .223 semi-automatic rifle was among the three powerful weapons crazed gunman Adam Lanza used in his bloody rampage.
And it was the Bushmaster -- a semi-automatic, military--style assault rifle - that Lanza fired to massacre 20 schoolchildren and six adult staffers.
Manufacture of the rifle was moved to Remington's Ilion factory in March 2011, providing a morbid link between this tight-knit town of just over 8,000 and the postcard-perfect New England community of Newtown.
Machinist Carl Bovay, 46, said if Lanza's weapon was manufactured after production moved to Ilion, there is roughly a one-in-three chance that he worked on the gun. The thought, he said, has weighed heavily on him and a handful of colleagues.
"I keep telling myself that I did not make that barrel," said Bovay, who made a point to mention that he does not personally own any firearms.
Gun manufacturer devastated following massacre - StamfordAdvocate