(GunReports.com) — Last week, the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS), which has $751.4 million invested in Cerberus, pushed the private equity giant and parent firm of Freedom Group into selling its holdings in the gunmaking company.
Freedom Group owns Remington, Bushmaster, and several other firearms brands that it has amassed over the last seven years. A Bushmaster rifle has been identified as one of the weapons used in the Newtown, Connecticut massacre, and in a follow-on shooting of first responders in Webster, New York.
Also, the father of Cerberus CEO Stephen Feinberg lives in Newtown, which may have influenced the firm to sell its holdings in Freedom Group.
With CalSTRS successfully influencing Cerberus to dump the firm’s sizable gun holdings, the question is whether other public pensions will use their leverage to threaten private equity firms into heeding anti-gun political positions.
