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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.
I remember running the numbers once, and estimating 80++ years life for modern guns. It was a dead-simple production rate vs. existing stock calculation, and I don't think I even corrected for changes over time.
I assumed modern AI could do better, but Claude Sonnet doesn't improve much. It reports 0.1-1% per year from the literature, with weak evidence.
Look at the last fifty years to predict the next fifty, and we might get...slightly better metallurgy, machining, ergonomics, and style? Maybe some different cartridge geometries like the Winchester Short Magnum line and better bullet construction like bonded jackets. Gun design isn't quite as solved as knives are, but they're a very mature technology by this point.
The problem is that, while like any man I admire beautiful engineering and want something way better than what I actually need, guns long ago passed the point where the gun is holding back the accuracy. Get me the finest $10,000 firearm it's not going to improve my groupings all that much over the cheapie.
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