I suspect most gun companies are sued on a regular basis. We don't read about product recalls or huge awards because most of the lawsuits are likely either summarily dismissed or they are settled -- and because they are bad publicity. That said there are still gravely expensive legal (and potentially settlement) fees involved. It would be interesting to know more about this.
Of course folks sue them, any time they think they can prove the product was defective, just like they do the manufactures of any other product from toasters to nerf balls. I don't think, myself, that it would be sustainable to say that gun makers are sued more often, or for more money than manufacturers of other items. So this is a barrier to lower costs that would hit all products about equally.
What are the government requirements placed on gun makers that aren't placed on other manufacturers? What costs do they add?
Quite a few actually.
I'm sure there are a number of competent off-shore manufacturers that could build Glock 17 semi-clones by the bushel and sell them inexpensively if: they were allowed to (not all are); if they could literally ship them to the US in Sea Train containers as they do other consumer products without having to track each unit from dock to the final sale.
Ok, you said, "quite a few, actually," and then listed one. First off, we're going to need more than one to support the idea that there are "quite a few."
Setting that aside, you've made an interesting bit of a dichotomy here. If all these other competent off-shore makers could do this if it wasn't for pesky government regulations that make it just too hard, how is it that Glock, who IS, themselves, a competent off-shore maker, manages to do so? And SiG, HK, Tanfoglio, CZ, Steyr, the various Turkish makers, Beretta, and so on? You very well may have a point but you're going to need to provide much better specifics about WHO is precluded from doing this, and by what laws or regulations.
I'll give you one starting point, the GCA'68 provision on handgun import criteria, found at Title 18 U.S.C. §925(d)(3). However, it makes a lot of sense to note that your main example through all this, the Glock 17, IS made overseas, and IS importable, and IS extremely successful and profitably by any measure. Why is Glock not subject to your scrutiny in the same way that these other hypothetical makers are?
If they were built in China at the same product quality levels (some believe that low price must equate to low cost and that's simply not accurate) the cost/unit would be substantially less. Consider what such a unit could be sold for if it could just be sold at a simple display at Harbor Freight without FFLs, etc.
Don't know if this is a tangent you want to explore, but consider cordless drills. Sure, you can buy A cordless drill at Harbor Freight for $100 or less. But you certainly won't buy one that's at all close to the same product quality level as, say, a Miluakee or Bosch model you'd find at a major builders' center. There are no government restrictions or federally licensed dealers jacking up the prices for those cordless drills. Why doesn't Harbor Freight sell you a drill as good as a Milwaukee?
It's important to note why the demand outstrips supply. In this case it was largely due to emotion and emotions do change. They can change quickly and radically. Gun makers either couldn't (or wouldn't) do what it took to satisfy demand for quite some time.
Ok, true, though I'd say that the gun industry managed to shift pretty well considering the shocks to the system and found various momentary equilibrium points along the last few years within a year of each big shock. The exception being .22 LR for reasons that are both clear and baffling.
Now that emotions are changing (and some capacity has been incrimentally added), we are seeing dropping prices while we hear comments along the lines of "The purchasing of guns is no bubble. There has been a fundamental increase in the number of gun owners in the US and this trend will continue." Were that actually true we wouldn't see prices decreasing right now.
Well, sure, we'll always see prices rise and fall somewhat based on all sorts of pressures from politics to the economy. Whether gun buying really has been in a (capital letters) BUBBLE or whether it has been in a "bubble-ish" rise that will largely continue though not at quite the meteoric rates of some of the last few years -- all remains to be seen.
What's going to be absolute fascinating to watch is how gun manufacturers throttle production to keep sale prices high should the drop in demand continue. Will one of the big manufacturers really cut margins deeply in order to maintain (or even grow) volume? If that happens, watch out because most of the others will be forced to follow. This definitely would happen were there more real competition.
Well, except in a command economy like the Soviet Union's, every manufacturer does their level best to set production goals to not exceed demand, or by very little if possible. Nobody wants to see their products' values tank because they made so many that nobody will pay much for one. Again, day one in economics class. Growing volume in the face of falling demand is simple economic suicide and it would be blatant malfeasance of shareholders' funds for a company to do such a thing.
Again, I have to respectfully disagree here. In fact, there's so much competition in the gun marketplace that it puts many other product areas to shame! How many polymer, striker-fired service autos do you have to choose from? How many bolt-action rifles -- with "SUBMOA" guarantees no less! -- do we have to pick from, all trying to hit the lowest price point feasible? Heck, the market in every category is so saturated with choices that you see manufactures trying to come up with the most ridiculous -- or innovative -- new ideas they can, to try to have something a bit less generic to offer the consumer. How about a tacticool-ed out Mossberg lever action .30-30? How about a BENT Taurus "Curve" subcompact autopistol? How about Remington trying to get into the carry gun market...risking millions of dollars on a product that doesn't even work right yet? How about the race to the biggest most T-Rex stomping revolver ever sold? This is not stuff invented because the gun market is stagnant, fat, lazy, and complacent. These are moves of desperation because of massive and cut-throat competition in a racing market.
I'll disagree as well. Were there less barriers to entry, less gov't controls and less stigma about being in the business, I think firearms would be a great deal less expensive because manufacturers who currently don't make guns would get into the business.
Based on what?
I see the barriers to entry as almost the same as any other consumer product. You're going in against LONG established big-name brands. You've got millions, or billions, to invest in setting up to make this thing while simultaneously launching yourself as a quality, interesting, exciting, innovative, and also trust-worthy brand so people will go out and buy one. I think most gun guys pretty much see the market as
completely saturated and there's even a bit of a backlash when YET ANOTHER!!! danged pistol comes out on the market, or YET ANOTHER!!! new hot rifle cartridge, or YET ANOTHER!!! company puts out a super-sniper-special-tactical whatever. And on and on. I can only imagine that market researchers and advisers for companies looking to expand and invest in new areas look at the gun world as a medium-sized pond already jammed full of fish, big and small.
And even so, we've seen a bunch of makers start up with various gun lines in the last 10 or so years. Diamondback, SCCY, Sphinx, Rock River, Rock Island, STI, and more.
What would really be interesting if some organization or individual came up with a design for something along the lines of a modular Glock 17 clone that was legal to produce and placed it in the public domain. If that happened and if entrepreneurs stepped-up to produce the constituent parts (particularly those that could not be 3D printed) to be assembled by others, the handgun market would feel the same pressures as the long gun market does today from the AR15 assemblers.
Hmmm. Well, there are companies that make aftermarket Glock frames upon which you can build your own, but I agree it would be cool to see sort of an AR lower, or Stemple gun version of a Title 1 handgun where you buy one small part and build it into whatever you want.
Simple. People bought guns yesterday because they feared they wouldn't be allowed to buy them tomorrow. In some cases that was indeed people who would probably have never bought a gun to begin with. A far larger number are those that simply accelerated buying their gun "wish lists" which not only spiked past demand but also leaves a bit of a hole in future demand.
Ah ha! But that assumes that a gun you bought yesterday is a gun you WON'T buy tomorrow. I don't know many gun guys who really work that way. Most folks I talk to seem to feel that a gun they bought yesterday helps make a cozy nest to welcome home all the guns they'll buy next!
But that is truly something I don't know. How many guns sold today represent sales that won't happen tomorrow? Guess we'll have to wait and see.
