[WillPostForFood]

that wouldn’t survive if a significant share of that production wasn’t smuggled into Latin America

Let's look at actual numbers. ATF says 50,000 guns were smuggled into latin america between 2015 and 2022. So about 7,200 a year. There are about 15-20 million new firearm sales per year in the US.

So assume ~.03% of production gets smuggled out. I think the industry would survive if that was cut that off. It actually would be better for them because it would make lies and slanders about the industry harder to make.

https://www.thetrace.org/2024/06/atf-gun-trafficking-report-...

[seanmcdirmid]

It’s not even close to 0.3%, the last time the Obama administration tried to get accurate numbers the republicans blew a head gasket. The fact that supposedly every American owns 4 or 5 guns should hint at how bad the smuggling problem is, and Americans are supporting it with a wink and cooked statistics, they are basically willingly exporting death.

[nickff]

Have you actually looked up any of the numbers you're writing here?

It seems like the USA has about 393.4MM civilian firearms, which is ~1.2 per capita. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estimated_number_of_civilian_g...

About 32% of Americans say they personally own one or more guns, and most of those people own multiple weapons. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/07/24/key-facts...

Where are the 'cooked statistics'?

[WillPostForFood]

0.03% is ten times less than 0.3%, so I agree it is not even close. The money to manufacturers from smuggling is a rounding error. The numbers are from anti-gun activists, so they are incentivized to over state, not understate the smuggling.

The fact that supposedly every American owns 4 or 5 guns should hint at how bad the smuggling problem is

I think it shows how disconnected non-gun owners are from people who own guns. None of my liberal gun owning friends in California have fewer than 4-5 guns. My conservative gun owning friends in Texas have 20-30 guns. I've never met a gun owner that had 1-2.