One of the greatest talents of the National Rifle Association and the gun industry has been their ability exploit high-profile events to pump up gun sales: Bill Clinton, the Brady Bill, the federal assault weapons "ban," Y2K, September 11th, and now, of course, Barack Obama. Regardless of the event, the solution remains the same: buy a gun. And if industry and gun fan mags are any indication, it should be an AR-15 assault rifle.
A fact left unstated by the gun lobby (and virtually unnoticed by the news media) is the fact that after gun sales rise, they eventually drop--sometimes precipitously. Sometimes, as Michael Kassnar, president of AR-15 manufacturer KBI/Charles Daly, explains, there's a "market collapse." Kassnar should know--he's just shut his business' doors.
According to the March 1, 2010, edition of theNew Gun Week:
One factor that contributed to the company's closure was what Kassner called a "collapse" of the market in mid-2009 for semiautomatic sport utility rifles, the so-called "black guns" designed on the AR-15 platform.
In other words, AR-15 assault rifles, but let us continue.
He said the rush to purchase those firearms came to a halt in about July, leaving him with a "warehouse full of guns nobody wanted."
Orders for about $8 million worth of firearms were canceled, he said, leaving KBI/Charles Daly essentially high and dry for the second half of the 2009 sales year. It appeared that the public became less fearful that the Obama administration was going to come after semi-autos, so the panic buying came to an end, Kassnar said...."The consumer just stopped buying," he said....the "sales blitz lasted about eight months."
Not to worry. Despite the long-term trends of declining gun ownership in America's boom and bust gun manufacturing economy, the NRA and gun industry are always on the lookout for another manufactured crisis to exploit and reel in the "panic" buyer.
Follow Josh Sugarmann on Twitter: www.twitter.com/VPCinfo
As for the AR-15 Market there really are two kinds of people buying them #1. The Wanna Bes who have graduated from their Game Systems and Airsoft , that now want the real thing to geek out on.
#2,
Ther Returning Soldiers from Iraq and Afganistan who are buying AR-15 and there Derivative Calibers to Hunt and Shoot with because they feel like an M-4 or M16A2, so the Weapon is easer to transition to due to familiarty with the system than a regular bolt-action rifle.
And #3 The Market Speculators who have Buying as much as they can , in order to sell high later, k n
A basic AR isn't much more expensive than a Ruger mini-14, but offers a great deal more accuracy and modularity, not to mention better ergonomics unless you spring for the ATI stock on the Ruger.
AR's dominate competitive and recreational centerfire target shooting in this country for very good reasons, and they are even making inroads into F-class benchrest.
As well as the other "Black Guns of Destruction" that VPC does not like us owning.
From Wikipedia (some production details omitted to stay under the 250-word limit):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Daly_firearms
Handguns: 1911 Steel Pistols...M5 Polymer Framed 1911 Pistols from Bul in Israel...A clone of the Browning Hi-Power was produced in the US from 2002 to 2006...1873 style single action revolvers were manufactured by F.LLI Pietta of Italy in the mid-2000s.
While not technically under the Charles Daly brand, KBI resumed importing the Jericho 941 Pistols from Israel Weapons Industries (IWI) Ltd. in 2009.
Rifles: Bolt action Mauser and Mini-Mauser rifles were produced by Zastava Arms in Serbia from 2002 until 2005. 1892 lever action rifles are produced in Italy by Armi Sport de Chiappa. In 2008 they entered the AR-15 market with a US produced line of AR-15 type rifles and carbines under the Charles Daly Defense brand.
Shotguns: Over and under, side by side, pump action, and semi-automatics are currently produced in Turkey. All of the pumps and semi-autos are made by Akkar in Istanbul, but Sarsilmaz and ATA also produced semi-autos for Daly during the mid-2000s....
I had the misfortune of coming back to the states right in the middle of The Panic. It was a few months and 2 pistols and 2 rifles later before I realized I was even paying inflated prices. I had no idea what the right price for that stuff was. I started reading up on things though, shopping around, and held off on buying that evil black Sig 556 until the price dropped in late fall :D (That same rifle was selling in the same store for $700 more in mid summer than what I paid in late Oct.)
The most evil rifle me and the wife picked up was her M4gery with a dedicated 22LR upper. That bad boy has every one of the scary features: retractable stock, pistol grip, flash suppressor, and a bayonet lug. Probably paid $200 too much for that one alone, since we bought it around April 09. Oh well, live and learn.
I buy guns for fun whenever I have the money and I shoot them in a responsible and safe manner. I don't want to be lumped in with a criminal misusing a gun anymore than I want my drivers lisence targeted because of a drunk driver killing someone. The hystaria has done nothing for me except made buying ammo to pricey and as a result I haven't bought shooting ammo in a while. I still have defense ammo so I'm not worried about my safety. But I hope the boom of buying has gone down long enough for prices to drop. If Obama and his cohorts get going with some gun grabbing scheme it will only drive the prices back up and just like gas prices it serves their purposes not America's.
Mr. Sugarmann is attempting to discuss why there are significant spikes and falls in the purchase of firearms, particularly firearms that are perceived as "likely to be banned." In my opinion, there are two reasons -- the irrationality of people in general, including gun owners, and the irrationality of the proposed legislation. People who are interested in firearms are not making their purchase decisions based on politicized labels like "assault weapon." When those people are told that a gun(s) they want may no longer be available based on the potential passage of a design-feature ban directed to "assault weapons" they often decide -- rationally or irrationally -- that they would be best advised to go out and buy that gun(s). A little time goes by and people get the things they wanted, and the fears begin to subside.
Where is the Big Sinister Motive?
Never forget -- the worst, permanent design-feature ban was the 1989 redefinition of the Sporting Purposes Test under President George H.W. Bush. James Brady was himself a member of the Reagan Administration. Do not make the mistake of assuming that Democrats oppose the right to keep and bear arms and that Republicans support it. The roots of the movement to strip Americans of their civil right to keep and bear arms run deep into the Republican Party.
were new I bought them Face to Face private sales, I picked them up from people that lost jobs.
AR's are coming down in price but if people are not buying it has more to do with job loss then anything.
I'm gonna go for what's behind door #2. Willfull misrepresentation.
That has been pretty well established.
AR sales have indeed returned to normal, as it has become clear that Obama was going to ignore the call to ban modern-looking rifles. But they are still the most popular centerfire rifles on the market.
When Rock River Arms, LMT, CMMG, Bushmaster, and DPMS go under because nobody is buying AR-15 type rifles anymore, let me know.
Great reason to celebrate Josh. Be glad the the majority of the nation doesn't support your agenda.
http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cjisd/nics/Total%20NICS%20Background%20Checks.htm
But then, note how they cite the number of guns reported as "per household". That would be fine if the number of persons per household was constant over that period of time. But, guess what? It isn't. Although the 2010 census has not yet been conducted, we have the 2000 figures at our disposal here:
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ctpp/jtw/jtw1.htm
Here we learn that from 1970 - 2000 the average number of persons per household in the U.S. dropped from 3.11 to 2.59...a drop of nearly 17%. Given the trend from decade-to-decade it's safe to assume that the average has likely dropped a bit more since 2000. But, even if it hasn't, we're still left with the fact that VPC is grossly misrepresenting the meaning of their statistics (which comes as no surprise, as honesty has never been one of their standards.) Why? Because a substantial cause of the decrease in persons-per-household is the increase in divorce rates over the decades. As a result you have many households splitting into two separate ones. And in a large number of cases, whatever firearm(s) were in the original home were kept by one of the splitting parties and...now you have a 50% lower rate of "per-household" firearm ownership for the individuals involved.
C'mon VPC. You're going to need to step your game up a notch. This stuff is really far too easy to expose.
Another classic examples of the old bromide about "lies, damned lies and statistics". The VPC "study" linked to declares a decline in gun-ownership rates via the following little bit of misrepresentation:
"During the period 1972 to 2006, the percentage of American households that reported
having any guns in the home has dropped nearly 20 percentage points: from a high of
54 percent in 1977 to 34.5 percent in 2006"
There are two problems with that claim. First, and most obviously, they cite two different time periods as though the shorter-term reduction in the 2nd represented a longer-term reduction in the first. They're attempting to pretend that a shorter-term trend is a longer-term one. I think most small children wouldn't be fooled by this. If you use the 1972 data as plotted on their graph you find that the drop is from 1972-2006 is really < 15%. Furthermore, why did they stop at 2006? Could it be becaus that year is prior to the expiration of the so-called "Assault Weapon Ban"? Anyone care to guess what happens to that number if you take gun-ownership after that into account? Or better still, following the 2008 election? I'll bet you can guess correctly.
{cont'd in next post}
Umm... hate to break this to you, Josh, but KBI/Charles Daly has never been a big name in the AR-15 market. Charles Daly has never been a big name in any market.
The Collapse of the AR-15 market???
It is blatently obvious that Josh has neglected to look at sales of AR-15 upper and lower receivers, accessories, .22 conversions, etc... Sure, there's probablay been an inevitable (but predictible) slump in sales after a year and 1/2 long buying frenzy, but let's get real. The collapse of an entire weapons platform?? That's why my latest copy of "Cheaper Than Dirt!" had about 3 full pages of AR-15 accessories, right? Because there's absolutely NO demand?? Bwahahahahaha!!!
The bottom line is that there are dealers/mfgrs who probabaly got burned taking a gamble on how long the buying trend would last. KBI must be one of them.
I wonder what Bushmaster or Rock River would have to say about this so called "collapse?"
If anyone needed a true definition of "Wishful Thinking", they need to read this post.
Josh, you should really look into selling uppers and lowers instead of full rifles. I hear it's a booming market these days. ;)