Franco Beretta is the vice president and managing director of Beretta in Italy, executive vice president of Beretta USA (the manufacturing, distribution and marketing arm of Beretta in the United States) and one of two sons of Ugo Beretta, president of Beretta Holding. He began work in the engineering department of the business while in college more than 25 years ago. The famous firm, with its headquarters nestled in the Alps, dates back almost 500 years when the family produced arms for the doge of Venice. It has been family-run for 16 generations. An official supplier of the U.S. military, more than 600,000 American-made 9 mm Beretta pistols have been delivered to U.S. troops. Today, the company produces approximately 1,500 weapons daily and achieved sales of $600 million in 2011. You can find out more about this historic gunmaker and its firearms at: berettausa.com.

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Decker: How important is the American market to Beretta and the gun trade in general?

Beretta: It is more than important: It is fundamental. Firearms are part and parcel with the American culture. From the right to self-protect to the culture of harvesting what the land has to offer, the use of firearms as a tool is in the DNA of most Americans. I feel that, today, if a firearms manufacturer is not actively engaged in the American market, it's virtually not in the firearms business. At Beretta, we are present in the U.S. market through products manufactured in Italy, but we have been manufacturing right here in the United States for decades. The decision to manufacture in the USA was in response to legislative limitations which prohibited the importation of certain products, but it was also an acknowledgement of the fact that there are brilliant resources for development and manufacturing in America, and not taking advantage of them would have been short-changing our ability to sustain growth. The ability to tap into the experience of people whose culture is so deeply entwined with the world of firearms becomes, in certain cases, essential.

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Beretta: I think that - after the many political changes that have occurred around the world in the past 15 years - world markets have reached a stabilization point. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the disintegration of the Soviet bloc - which opened new, large hunting markets for us, like Russia and Kazakhstan - many world markets have reached a point of maturity. Beretta continues to cater to them through new products and technologies that serve their specific needs. While certain markets continue to be completely closed to us, our ears are constantly to the ground. One of the keys to longevity is the ability to understand the markets we serve, and even anticipate their needs. A global reach makes this task more challenging but also substantially more rewarding.

<snip> to more at link (emphasis added)