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Ruger to Discontinue Several Major Models. Part of their Ruger 2030 project to re-haul the company and
make more moneylose less money. I think it's very likely that they bring many of these models back, but this is a big surprise to a lot of people, especially anyone who happened to like Ruger's vast revolver catalog.I really didn't expect Ruger needing to do anything like this, to be honest. It seems like people are spending more money on guns than ever, or at least that's what I was doing. The ATF stating they will no longer enforce the NFA when it comes to short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, and suppressors in applicable states and the resulting swarm of stock and suppressor purchases seemed to be evidence to me of this. But one commenter points out that times are a bit tough for most gun manufacturers. Since we've got a Republican administration and (last I know of) Republican leaning Congress in both the House and the Senate, there aren't any bans on the table and people aren't panic buying Glocks and "modern sporting rifles".
I remember once reading an argument between a couple right-wing users here about whether they'd press a button that had a 75% chance of wiping out all of Blue Tribe and a 25% chance of wiping out all of Red Tribe. The user against pushing the button said that wiping out Blue Tribe would be a complete disaster for the entire country because of how many industries rely on them. Perhaps I'd give this as an example of how that can manifest. It's Red Tribe buying the guns with Red Tribe money, but it's Blue Tribe driving them to do it.
What's the attrition rate over time for consumer firearms? I would think it's pretty low on average. Leaving aside boating accidents, which don't take them out of circulation anyway. You're not going to see a lot of guns legitimately lost, like permanently lost such that the owner needs to buy a replacement. Some small fraction are stolen, but even those remain in circulation satisfying some kind of consumer demand. Are any significant portion of firearms damaged beyond repair each year? How many rounds do you have to put through a modern firearm before it wears out?
So if guns exist at some point to fulfill all existing demand, and they don't pass out of circulation, you're only selling guns if you're creating new gun owners or new demand. Tech advancements account for some new sales, but what new tech is going to come out of the industry at this point? When does that max itself out? Doesn't really matter if the owner dies, they are pretty much always inherited, or at least sold off.
The only thing producing fresh demand that I can think of are gun buybacks and murderers tossing a handgun into the Hudson. Unless some exogenous force is producing new gun buyers.
Well yeah- I have guns made for WWII(and stored in a random closet since then, not dipped in cosmoline in a state armory in eastern europe for fifty years). I have pistols used heavily since the seventies and shotguns from the mid twentieth century.
The gun industry may simply have saturated demand and need to expand the supply of gun owners. I know I stopped buying new guns because I simply couldn't think of any I wanted badly enough to spend hundreds of dollars on(I already have plenty, after all). Unfortunately, 'who can they sell guns to' is a valid question- selling CCH's to red tribe women gets you, like, one new gun per buyer, and a lot of them are already onboard. There's plenty of people legally prohibited from owning them, or simply unwilling to do so. It's a tough market to expand in; all the guys in my hunting club already have enough guns that it'd probably be more lucrative to try to sell them a second safe. Regulars at the range are in the same boat.
Yeah I buy a car or a drill because my last one died. I buy pens or chapstick because I lost the last one. When my grandmother died, all her blankets and sheets were either thrown out or used for moving blankets, because I don't think of that as something I'm going to inherit.
None of those apply to guns. It wouldn't surprise me if the median gun purchased in the past ten years is still around when guns are banned.
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