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Remington has been an iconic American brand for more than 200 years.
The US military used Remington firearms, as did Bonnie and Clyde. So did Adam Lanza, who carried out the Sandy Hook Massacre in 2012 that claimed the lives of 20 children and six adults.
Last month the company filed for bankruptcy protection in Delaware.
The demise of the company, which admitted that it was between US$100 million ($141m) and US$500m in debt, came against a backdrop of falling sales and the reluctance of major investors to get involved in an industry whose reputation was becoming more toxic by the day.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 96 Americans are shot dead on an average day. Of these, seven are either children or teenagers.
This figure appears to have had little impact on a business that, according to the Firearms Industry Trade Association, is worth more than US$50 billion a year to the US economy.
It takes an event as dramatic as Sandy Hook or February's massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 people were killed, for legislators even to contemplate action.
With many US politicians fearful of losing the financial and political support of the National Rifle Association, very little legislation gets passed. But even the threat of restrictions on gun ownership tends to boost demand rather than dampen it.
It is a phenomenon known as "fear-based buying", which manifested itself again after Parkland when the FBI ran 2.8 million federal background checks for firearms purchases - the highest March number since the bureau began releasing data in 1998.
However, the surge came after sales had plummeted following the election of Donald Trump, a self-proclaimed "true friend and champion" of guns.
Falling demand was bad news not only for Remington, but also Colt, Smith & Wesson and Ruger, which saw sales plummet by 20 per cent last year.
The common theme was "industry overcapacity". Put simply, companies were left with guns they had made after ramping up production in the expectation that enthusiasts would stock up on firearms while they could.
According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 96 Americans are shot dead on an average day. Of these, seven are either children or teenagers.
"Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, probably was the best president for gun sales in recent history, as any attempt by his administration to tighten laws on gun sales and ownership had the very opposite effect," says Dyfed Loesche, an expert with data portal Statista.
"People went out to buy more guns before they possibly got banned. So, in a tragic reversal, a president who was pro-regulation actually boosted arms proliferation, and manufacturers' revenues.
"Now people are less scared that the president is going to do anything to deprive them of their guns, there is no need to worry."
Gun industry sales plummeted following the election of US President Donald Trump, a self-proclaimed "true friend and champion" of guns. Picture / Getty Images
Remington is a perfect case study of how this immutable law of gun economics works in practice, with companies thriving when firearms owners feel under threat and struggling when they do not.
The company dates back to 1816 when Eliphalet Remington II produced his first hand-built rifle on his father's forge. In 1828 he modernised the production process at Ilion in New York. The company secured its first major contract in 1845, when the Army Ordnance Department ordered 5,000 rifles, and prospered as the United States spread west in the latter half of the 19th century and into the 20th century.
In 2007 Remington was bought by the private equity group Cerberus Capital Management for US$118m, including it in a firearms conglomerate called Freedom Group.
For a time, all went well as the firearms business boomed under Obama, with the industry as a whole producing nearly 8.6 million guns in 2012, compared with 3.3 million in 2002.
The company prospered even after the 2012 Sandy Hook massacre. With Obama in the White House and widespread horror at the ease with which Lanza got his hands on the weapon, gun curbs seemed inevitable and enthusiasts restocked their arsenals while they could. According to Moody's, Remington's sales reached US$1.3b in 2013, a rise of 36 per cent.
"Demand for firearms and ammunition has increased significantly since the fourth quarter of 2012, which we believe has been due in part to increased consumer concern relating to more restrictive government regulation on the federal, state and local levels," Remington noted in its annual report for 2013.
"While we view this increase in demand as a significant long-term opportunity to expand our customer base and strengthen our customer relationships, there can be no assurance that this increased demand will continue."
Seizing on the "opportunity", Remington increased production capacity, borrowing heavily to do so.
It borrowed US$12.5m from the city of Huntsville, Alabama, to build a new plant in 2014. The company's total debt increased by around 70 per cent between 2011 and 2014.
Underpinning the strategy was an expectation that Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 election and introduce tighter gun controls. This, the company assumed, would result in a sales spike.
But things went awry when Trump became President and the threat of gun curbs receded. Stepping up production proved to be a massive miscalculation, Professor Robert Dolan of Harvard Business School says: "Here they are in bankruptcy - so much for that 'opportunity'."
Remington was left with a vast inventory nobody wanted to buy. That would have been bad enough, but the company was also on the ropes after Sandy Hook's families sued in 2014. Even though Remington was cleared of any wrongdoing, reputational damage resulted in investors fleeing.
To add to the company's problems, it faced litigation over alleged defects in one of its guns, the Remington Model 700, which were cited as the reason for the weapon accidentally discharging.
Things worsened after February's Florida massacre. Large investors including teachers' pension funds, which had held stock in gunmakers, took their money elsewhere, leaving Remington struggling to raise the capital it needed to stay afloat.
Companies charged with managing funds followed suit. Within a couple of weeks of Parkland, BlackRock - the world's biggest investor - issued a statement in which it stepped up the pressure on the industry including three major gun manufacturers: American Outdoor Brands, Vista Outdoor and Ruger.
Where it actively managed investment portfolios, it offered clients the opportunity to pick from funds that excluded gun manufacturers.
When it came to "passive equity" products (funds that, by their nature have to invest in every stock in an index, including shares in gun manufacturers and retailers) BlackRock made clear it would use its financial muscle to change the way these companies operated.
Gunmakers were asked whether they were investing in safety technology and what steps companies had taken to minimise the reputational, financial and legal risks they faced.
Retailers were also put under the spotlight, being interrogated over how they made sure they complied with existing laws, what they did to promote gun safety education, and the rigour with which they carried out background checks.
The impact was dramatic. Dick's Sporting Goods, for example, said it would end the sale of assault weapons completely, as well banning anyone under the age of 21 from purchasing any firearms. Walmart and Kroger both lifted the minimum age for anyone buying a gun to 21. Kroger later stopped selling the AR-15 assault rifle.
In any case, some experts say that demand for military-style weapons is receding. People are buying small handguns, costing around US$300, rather than assault rifles that can cost as much as US$2,500. So the industry is not only selling fewer firearms, but cheaper ones as well.
Despite the financial problems faced by gunmakers in recent months, the firearms industry is not going to wither and die, says Brian Rafn, an analyst with Wisconsin-based Morgan Dempsey.
He says: "From 1946 until Sept 11, the gun industry was a three to six million-unit business. Then it moved upwards towards seven to eight million units and it went up again after Obama got in and started talking about taking guns away."
America is awash with weapons.
"We are talking about a Mount Rushmore of guns."
While some investors - like BlackRock, Bank of America and Citigroup - are moving away from the industry, others such as Wells Fargo will continue to provide capital, Rafn adds.
"They might talk about ethical investment on the East coast, but here in the heartland we don't care."
