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

Prescription drugs are probably the best example...

 

I still disagree.

There is a price for refinement of a product. Have you ever handled a Hipoint? Please tell me you have. Its a piece of crap compared to a Glock.

Not only that, but the added costs such as marketing and overhead costs to run a business. I doubt Hipoint spends much in any of those...

 

By the time you add Austria's high labor and benefits, import/export duties/tariffs, inventory carrying costs, advertising/gun shows, US 11% adder on sporting goods like guns and on and on....just looking at raw material costs is ludicrous. Glocks sell for what they do because they can't sell them for more than that.

 

Agreed. We have it better than any time since 1968 (even better because there were fewer selections back then and guns were much more expensive compared to salaries). There has been an astonishing improvement in gun rights since the 1968 to 1986 period. In most states, it gets better every year. Concealed carry was illegal in most states for most of the 20th century. Now it's almost everywhere.

 

Your comment about "refinement" is almost laughable. Glock firearms are supremely simple, utilitarian and inexpensive to produce designs. Glocks are not expensive to produce along the lines of M1911s, Pythons, Hi-Powers, etc.

Cheap to produce but extremely robust and reliable in function. I suspect in terms of materials, processing and direct labor, there's $10.00-$25.00 in the cost of a G17 vs. a Hi-Point. $10.00-$25.00 maximum. It might well be less than that/unit based on what I would expect to be far higher production volume by Glock.

Look at my comments -- I'm talking about costs to produce and distribute. Not other costs of sales like marketing. I'm not sure what you mean by "overhead"? I suspect the OH rate (as a percentage of direct labor and machine time) is comparable for Glock and Hi-Point.

 

Well it looks like Aragon is wrong. Not sure why his angle is. Gun sales hit a extreme high in 2013 based on a unique set of circumstances, but to act like there is a "slump" is absurd.

I am not sure Aragon understand business, or politics for that matter.

 

And some more evidence that Aragon is overstating the negative. Of course in some places, and for some kinds of firearms the market has softened. For example, .22 rifles and handguns because of the difficulty and higher cost in purchasing ammunition.

But it's more important to look over the whole market, and its prospects - which Forbes did.

Now this picture doesn't suggest that the firearms market is in a state of collapse.

Forbes is known for going after the best expertise and sources, not speculation. So that's what they did here.

Follow the link listed below and read the whole story, which is extensive and reveals many factors related to the industries' health that are seldom discussed. When you're done I know you'll be better informed, and likely feel a lot better.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/frankminiter/2015/07/17/why-gun-sales-boomed-in-june/1/