Stand your ground, concealed carry, infantile infatuation with mythical cowboy culture.

[AtheistCrusader]

20. Firearms.

That 30bn number includes all ammo produced for the 300 or so million guns in play in the US (and possibly military ammo contracts as well, which are so enormous they can dry up supplies in the US civilian market at times) all the way down to hunting trips, which can range in the thousands of dollars for a few days.

Actual civilian firearms manufacturing (new weapons) is about 2bn per year, last I checked. (about half the firearms/ammo number quoted in that article (5bn)) It may have gone up a bit in the frenzy of post-election buying we just saw.

I don't see a link between lobbying for hunting, and firearms manufacture, as the market is already saturated with some 300+ million firearms. Most NRA members aren't even sportsmen or women. So the production of new firearms for the civilian market seems a distinct issue to me. (and where most gun control legislative efforts are aimed)

I hope you will accept that I was being literal when I specified 'firearms', as I did intend to exclude ammo, and all the ancillary firearms-related industries. I certainly could have made that more clear, and for that I apologize.