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...in at least
one area of the economy, according to the Washington Times:
The economic
impact of the firearms industry is up 66 percent since the beginning of the
Great Recession, providing an unexpected shot in the arm for the economy,
according to a new study.
The National
Shooting Sports Foundation says the
economic impact of firearm sales — a figure that includes jobs. taxes and sales — hit $31 billion in 2011, up from
$19 billion in 2008.
Jobs in the
firearms business jumped 30 percent from 2008 to 2011, when the industry
employed 98,750.
The industry
paid $2.5 billion in federal taxes in 2011, up 66 percent in three years.
“Ours is
an industry with a rich history and heritage that remains vital and important
to the American economy today,” NSSF Senior Vice President Lawrence G.
Keane said in a statement. “To millions of Americans our
industry’s products represent liberty, security and recreation.”
...
Although there
is no single indicator that tracks the number of firearms sold in the
country, the FBI reported that a record 14.4 million criminal background
checks were requested for gun purchases in 2010, and that preliminary numbers
project the figure to be above 16 million for 2011.
According to
the NSSF’s numbers, requests for gun-related background checks was
up some 17.3 percent for the month of January 2012 compared to the same
period a year earlier — the 20th straight monthly increase in
background check requests.
FBI officials
say that just over 1 percent of such background checks result in denials, and
not every background check results in a final gun purchase. But the numbers
are widely considered a reliable proxy for gun sales trends generally.
As the saying
goes, there's always a bull market somewhere!
Bang-bang.
Michael J. Panzner
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