Photo: Courtesy of CMMG
As the coronavirus continues to impact our daily lives, firearms-related companies are stepping up to help.
Firearms manufacturer CMMG, located in Boonville, Mo., for example, recently started a two-week run of providing free lunches to local first responders. The lunches are purchased from area restaurants, which have seen considerably less business due to virus fears.
“We hope this motivates and inspires others to do the same,” said CMMG CEO Chris Reinkemeyer. “In times like these, we get through things by supporting our neighbors and serving each other.”
Employees at Federal Ammunition, in Anoka, Minn., discovered that local hospitals were running dangerously low on surgical masks, so they donated several cases of N95 masks from their inventory to these hospitals. This is important, as the N95 mask is the only mask rated to stop someone from inhaling the coronavirus.
Photos: Courtesy of Federal Ammunition
Cole-TAC, which manufacturers tactical shooting gear—much of it sewn together at the company’s Newport, N.H., facility—also noticed a shortage of surgical masks and hospital gowns, so the company decided to make these two items.
“We heard through the grapevine that one of our local nursing homes was very, very low on these essential items,” said Cole-TAC president Dustin Coleman. “We made sure the nursing home received some of the first gowns and masks we made.”
Cole-TAC launched a GoFundMe drive to help ensure that other local nursing homes can be supplied with the products.
At Sellmark Corporation, located in Mansfield, Texas, Founder and CEO James Sellers said his company has approved all requested time off for employees, even if the employees don’t technically have the time accrued. Sellmark makes a variety of optics for the shooting sports and other accessories.
“We are doing everything we can to keep our employees on payroll as long as possible, so they can pay their bills and support themselves and local businesses,” said Sellers. “We are also offering additional support for employees who become sick with COVID-19 beyond the sick-time and paid-time-off they have. Our employees come first, and we owe them all we can do to help them in this difficult time.”
Brownells, the Iowa-based online firearm and firearm accessories supplier, teamed up with Folding@Home. Brownells is lending Folding@Home its excess computing power to help combat the virus. According to a Brownells’ press release, “Folding@Home is helping with an international effort to understand the molecular structure of the virus in hopes of finding ways to defeat it. Folding@Home has called on individuals and companies with excess server space and computing abilities to help execute computer modeling simulations to help speed up an otherwise huge and lengthy task.”
Brownells’ IT Director Curt Graff said, “Our IT team learned about the Folding@Home project and their work using computer modeling to better understand the molecular and protein structure of the virus. We are committed to helping protect our country by virtue of our personal protection and sustainability products, but we see this as a way to support the international community in a time of significant need.”
Brownells anticipated it will donate at least 1,300 hours to the project and run approximately 200 simulations on behalf of COVID-19 research.
There are many other examples of firearms-related companies helping during this difficult time.
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