This past year was a great year for gun manufacturers. Not only did an insane amount of firearms get sold on Black Friday this year, the entire industry contributed $51.3 billion to the economy, according to The National Shooting Sports Federation. That’s an increase of $2 billion from 2015 ($49.3 billion).
Since 2008, the revenues, tax contribution and job generation of the firearms industry has increased by 168 percent, from $19.1 billion to $51.3 billion in 2016.
Over 141,000 Americans are employed full-time by manufacturers, distributors and vendors of guns and ammunition. There are almost 160,000 additional jobs in supplier and ancillary industries.
“The mainstream media work hard to convince the public that gun control measures are justified because gun owners are outliers, with gun ownership on the wane across the country,” the NSSF states within the report. “These facts speak for themselves – ever-growing numbers of Americans believe in the Second Amendment, and take active steps to exercise their right to keep and bear arms.”
The following statistics were also in NSSF’s report:
- The number of FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) background checks increased from under nine million in 2005 to more than 27 million by 2016.
- The number of National Firearms Act (NFA) firearms processed in applications by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) increased from 147,484 in 2005 to 1,426,211 in 2015.
- According to the Crime Prevention Research Center, the number of people with concealed carry permits has increased 215 percent since 2007, with 1.73 million new concealed handgun permits issued in 2015.
