How well will gun mfgs. throttle back production to match slumping demand?

Absolutely not. To suggest a Glock 17 couldn't be built and sold for a profit at $199.95 is simply incorrect. Glock however would be foolish to do so as long as it can demand a higher price, which it can.

Take a very hard look at a Glock vs. a Hi-Point from strictly a raw materials, processing and direct labor standpoint. I seriously doubt there is more than $10-25.00/unit difference between the two.

As a comparison, go take a look at something like a heavy-duty 1/2" Bosch hammer drill at Home Depot for $199.95. Look at the materials, the machine work, the electric motor and the direct labor involved vs. a Glock at almost triple the price.

Firearms prices are artificially high because of onerous gun regulations, because being in the gun-making business is fairly taboo these days which limits competition and because certain countries like China cannot import every model they make into the US. They're not high based on their cost to produce and distribute.

On, yeah, and there's also the matter of a gun-maker's reputation. If Glock made a strategic decision to drastically cut its sales prices in order to greatly increase its market share, there would be a great many decrying the "drop" in Glock's "quality" based on nothing more than the price drop. It would cheapen the brand.

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Sam1911 said:

1) I don't agree that it is "a lot more difficult to buy guns today." There are a few states -- a few -- where it is harder to buy some guns that it was in the past, but since FOPA, and the sunset of the AWB, it actually is easier to buy guns now than it was (more or less) at any time since 1968. (FOPA straightened out some messes made by the GCA.) For the majority of Americans, buying a gun is no more complicated than walking into a gun store, filling out the 4473 and leaving 10 minutes later with their new gun. ANY gun, excepting NFA items. And in the case of rifles and shotguns, they can do that in any state they happen to be standing it (with a very few exceptions), not just their home state.

While buying a gun isn't as simple now as it was up until 1968, and for folks in CA, MA, NJ, IL, and a few other places it may be more difficult if they're looking for a handgun or military-style firearm, I don't agree that it has become much harder to buy a gun than in the past. This is a GOOD time to be shopping!

2) Availability: I don't really know how you can support this assertion. These days there are an unbelievable number of make and models of firearm available to the prospective buyer. Not just a "big three" (four, five ... whatever) of makers but many quality producers. And most of those makers put out a bewildering assortment of models. It may take a buyer a few weeks ... even a few months ... to find EXACTLY this or that gun, if they've got very specific tastes, but anyone who knows enough to be that picky isn't going to be dissuaded by a brief search to find the one they want. Yes, the market and the shelves are pretty bunched up with ARs these days, but if you want a Winchester rifle or a Ruger revolver or a reproduction lever gun in .44-40 -- they're out there and you can have one.

If you're saying a lot of people are going to gun stores, looking around and saying, "Awww, I can't believe they don't have a left-handed Savage 11 in .218 Bee, today! I'm going home, forget this!" well, I don't think that sort of thing happens much. We've got the internet with a handful of nationwide retailers ready to ship you whatever, and gun dealers who will help you scour their networks to find just what you want.

If your complaint is that just what you want is out of production... uh, look, time marches on. I really want an AMC Gremlin. I guess I'm not buying a car because no one seems to make them anymore! Was I really in the car market to begin with? Are there a million folks just like me who will kill the demand curve because they just won't buy a car if they can't have a new Gremlin? I don't think so.

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Lord Teapot said:

meanwhile in reality

http://money.cnn.com/2015/07/07/news/gun-sales/



busiest june on record

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Why Gun Sales Boomed In June

Frank Miniter Jul 17, 2015 @ 5:17 AM

Guns are not perishable items. Kept in good repair a firearm lasts generations. So how is it that gun sales continue to set records when more than 100 million American gun owners already have over 300 million guns?

Last month, for example, was the busiest June for gun sales ever. The National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the trade association for firearms manufacturers, says gun dealers completed 886,825 background checks in June 2015. The NSSF follows the FBI-administered National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) closely. Each time someone wants to buy a gun from a licensed dealer their name must be called into the FBI’s NICS database (or, in some cases, a state-operated database) to check if that person is barred from possessing a gun. The NSSF said the number of NICS checks last June was “the highest” on record “for the 17-year-old [NICS] system.” It was an increase of 10.1 percent over June 2014.

Now, some news reports say this jump in sales is all about gun owners’ fears about more gun control coming in the wake of the horrific attack on parishioners on June 17 at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. The thing is this can’t be the whole story because in May 2015 some 918,707 background checks were called into the FBI’s database, making it the second-highest May ever.

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For a deeper explanation I contacted Jim Curcuruto, director, industry research & analysis for the NSSF. He said, “Background checks were up over 19 percent in South Carolina, as compared to the previous June, but that one state isn’t enough to make the NICS checks jump 10 percent nationally. So, after making a lot of calls, we found that some of the bump was related to sales and other deals at retail chains. Some percentage of the rise in sales was definitely related to fear of more gun control. There are also typically spikes in sales regionally after something occurs that prompts people to look for ways to protect their own lives. But there has also been a steady rise in gun sales for some time. So there were multiple factors involved.”

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