Last year we imported 3.2 million firearms

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Never seen that website before. The facts sound plenty believable, but any website that puts "Everything our government really does" on its banner raises my eyebrow. To google I go.
 
There has to be more than meets the eye to this deal. The State Department has been working with the UN for years to get us under the UN's regulatory plans for "stopping the spread of small arms" so the idea that this bunch wants to "help" US arms manufacturers sell more "small arms" doesn't make a lot of sense. Last I knew our manufacturers don't exactly have a surplus of ready to sell weapons and a huge percentage of the "developed" nations have very strict controls on gun ownership so I am not too sure there would be a big market demand unless they are wanting to sell to Arab nations for some more overthrows.......
 
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This is absolutely terrible. American manufacturers need to step it up!
 
The State Department has been working with the UN for years to get us under the UN's regulatory plans for "stopping the spread of small arms" so the idea that this bunch wants to "help" US arms manufacturers sell more "small arms" doesn't make a lot of sense.
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It does if you're Hillary Clinton and want to use a clandestined entrapment scheme to gain ground when some of those weapons do turn up in the wrong hands; "See, I told you we needed to regulate guns more here. Look at all these US-made weapons used to kill people all over the world".

They don't care how many people have to die for them to "stop the killing"
 
"that this bunch wants to "help" US arms manufacturers sell more "small arms" doesn't make a lot of sense"

The majority of the treaty talk centers on the kinds of weapons that are smaller than artillery. Look at the years it took them to convict Victor Blount because there weren't any laws about gun running. He wasn't in hiding; he had his own fleet of planes. Sixty planes according to some reports.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11036569

The 2005 movie Lord of War was about him.
 
As long as people keep buying firearms made overseas, they will be imported. Pretty simple. I made it a point a few years back to only buy American owned, manufactured and assembled firearms. My last hold out is my wife's XD subcompact 9mm. Otherwise, all my firearms are Winchester, Marlin, S&W, Ruger, Colt and Windham Weaponry. Not trying to be a snob or stir the pot, but the only way manufacturing jobs are coming back to America to is to stop buying products from foreign owned companies even if they have an assembly plant in the U.S. The profits still go overseas. Obama and the politicos can talk all they want about creating American manufacturing jobs, and government over-regulation and taxation don't help matters any, but in the end consumers drive everything. I shall now climb down from my soapbox.
 
I think sleepyone and I are in mutual agreement on this one. When the companies start making things in America again I will support them. Until then I am not buying a shotgun from China, a rifle from Russia, or a handgun from Austria when they are just assembled here. Not gonna happen!

I must admit I did make one exception for the FNP-9 I bought used from a local store, which remains the only semi-auto in my rotation.
 
If true, it would probably be because NObama probably thinks that if American manufacturers ship more weapons over seas, there will be fewer available for Americans to purchase. Just a thought.

Not to hijack this thread, but a friend of my neighbor who's son works at homeland security administration (You know how reliable that is) said that gun control is third on NObamas "to do" list [when] he gets reelected.
 
Could we keep this on-target instead of turning into an anti-Obama rally? Election fever starts this summer and I'd like to deal with the madness later than sooner.
 
I bought an Italian Beretta 20ga O/U last year and several Chech CZ rimfire rifles and a German Annie rimfire target bench gun....

These were all high quality units. Some of the US guns have terrible QC. The USA has the highest coporate income tax rates in the world today and labor is also very high. Unfortunately, this means US manufacturors have a hard time competing - plain and simple.

Some of the S&W guns and Winchesters are still pretty high quality and certain Savage guns are OK too.

We live in a global marketplace that, for the most part, promotes free trade. Get used to it.
 
I must admit I did make one exception for the FNP-9 I bought used from a local store, which remains the only semi-auto in my rotation.
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That might be American made. They do have a plant in Columbia, South Carolina.
 
Well I have some Rugers, and some AR's, and a couple of Kel Tecs and an NAA and an S&W BG .380 that are American made. But I also have Brownings (Belgian), Beretta's, Bersa, HK's, Bernadelli, Benelli in the gun safes. It's nice to live in America where you have choices.

But back to the original post. American manufacturers seem to be doing ok, Ruger had to stop taking new orders because they are fully booked for most of the year, and S&W stock is way up this year. Rebuilding manufacturing in America is a much bigger problem than can be addressed on these forums though.

Simplistic answers like only buy American mean you simply won't own most things. For example you probably wouldn't be reading this forum because somewhere around 99% of all computer motherboards are sourced from outside the US. Not a single television set was manufactured in the US last year (none since 1996 as far as I can tell). American manufacturing for many years concentrated on trying to build down to a price, so design and quality suffered and yet they still couldn't compete on price with the cheap imports. And because the design and quality had been reduced they also could not compete with the top end brands. And whether you like their products or not the Germans and Swiss in particular have maintained a high quality of manufacturing. Who knows if they are really worth the extra money, but enough people think they are to keep them doing quite well.

When you do the math it just doesn't look good. Personally I think an assembly line worker in the US needs to make at least $15-20 an hour ($30-40k per year) to have a decent lifestyle. But when you add a reasonable benefits package it looks more like $20-26 per hour to a company. And that is very expensive when compared to a Croatian working for $5-7 / hr., or a Chinese/Vietnamese/Indian worker making $1-3 / hour. Then you have the problem of US consumers wanting everything cheap, just read these forums. Every day there are multiple posts asking about the cheapest ammo, the cheapest price for a new gun, etc, almost no one asks about the "best" because they only want good enough.

Now I have to run, have to pack up my Croatian made pistol so my gunsmith can install some American made Tritium sights on it tomorrow.
 
I am happy I purchased one of those 3.2 million imported firearms. It's a surplus Swiss Army Pistol/SIG Pistole-49 a.k.a. P210. Top Gun Supply imported 30 of them.

I wish I'd bought two, but I didn't want to be greedy and they were $2499 each. Ouch. But worth it. I think I shot it more the first day than it had been fired in its first 40+ years.

John
 
I try to buy American but when it comes to guns I buy based on quality/price/availability. My $99 Mosin Nagant was obviously imported but my $1,000 AR-15 was made in America so I think it evens out.

I wish the import laws weren't so strict and we could get H&K G36 imports (not those cheap versions)
 
What if all imported motorcycles were banned?

How much more would you have to pay for a new Harley if they had no foreign compitition? Sure, we all love Harleys but the fact that you have the option to buy something else keeps the price competitive. Some of the major manufacturers would support such a law. Remembere when Harley-Davidson persuaded the Reagan administration to put high tarrifs on large imported motorcycles back in the 1980's at the expence of the consumer? Prices for big cruisers skyrocketed.

The same thing will happen with guns. How many more Sigmas could Smith & Wesson sell if Springfield could no longer import XD's from Croatia? Their new 'Governor' is nothing but a knock off of the Taurus Judge that is imported from Brazil. They could sell a lot more Governors if the Judge was banned from importation.

Don't expect the domestic gun industry to complain too loudly on this one. After all, if you can no longer buy a cheap surplus Mauser to hunt with you will have to buy a new bolt action from them.
 
Let me know when America starts a company that can compete with the likes of Carl Zeiss, Leica, Swarovski, Hensoldt, or Schmidt & Bender. US Optics is the closest US competition and uses German Schott glass. Nightforce uses glass made in Japan. The only 100% US optics company that comes to mind is Leupold and they're not even close to the level of the aforementioned companies.

We don't really make anything that competes with match .22 rifles like Anschutz and similar German companies. Not every product niche is satisfied by a US company. I was looking for a proven military-issued precision rifle system. Remington will shoo you away as a lowly civilian so the only turn-key market choices came from Accuracy International or Sako and both are better products, definitely more expensive, sold to civilians if you have deep pockets. A rifle outfitted from either of those companies breaks into the five-figure mark so it has little with some consumers trying to save a buck when it costs more! Remington couldn't care less and there are already a lot if legitimate gripes against the company.

Right now there is a thread on SH where Remington swapped two contract military rifles, prize rifles for the winning team, for a downgraded action and barrel on a used chassis. This was for an iternational sniper competition where the winners were active duty soldiers. Remington didn't even cough up the bait-and-switch prizes until 7 months later. Does not make me think hiighly of some companies. The opposite of this "hate America blindly" thing is pounding the "love America" drum. I take the good with the bad. I will buy a good US product and even prefer it but I won't buy a junky one or one that has questionable baggage behind it. I have plenty of firearms from America and other funny-shaped countries across the pond.
 
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