Handgun Sales in State Sink to 25-Year Low
California’s handgun sales have hit a quarter-century low, elating gun opponents and creating open worry in the industry that firearms might be joining the ranks of such public pariahs as tobacco and well-marbled beef.
“You’re seeing gun ownership being politically incorrect,” said Bob Ricker, director of government affairs for the American Shooting Sports Council, which represents the nation’s $24-billion-a-year firearms industry.
Last year, handgun sales in California fell to 204,409, the lowest number since 1973, even though the state’s population has increased 60% since then. Sales rose statewide after the 1992 Los Angeles riots to a peak of 419,000 the next year, then began dropping.
The industry was forecasting in 1996 that sales would even out, but instead they kept falling--and, according to the state Department of Justice, continued to fall during the first six months of 1998.
Californians are not alone in their reduced appetite for buying handguns. Nationwide, firearms sales have been flat for several years, and surveys suggest that the rate of gun ownership is declining.
A Harris poll conducted in May found that 32% reported having a gun in the house, compared with 40% in 1996 and 48% in 1973.
The reasons offered for the slow market vary as widely as views on whether guns kill people or people kill people.
Among the explanations: greater concern about guns and safety, lower crime rates, a crackdown on the licenses to sell firearms, the aging of the prime gun-buying generation, and a marketplace in which most people who want guns already have them.
One in 159 Californians bought a handgun last year. That’s lower than in 1972, the earliest year for which the state Department of Justice has figures, when the purchase rate was 1 in 108 people. In 1981, the rate hit a high of 1 in 65.
Some segments of the firearms industry insist that the falloff is just part of a cyclical slump that will turn back to boom again. “If someone came out today with a very interesting handgun, I think they would sell hundreds of thousands, if not a million,” said Bob Delfay, president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
Others, including the National Rifle Assn., say that the market is simply too small for the number of manufacturers, and that gun makers must look for ways to expand the number of people interested in owning a firearm.
But in the eyes of emergency room physician and anti-gun activist Garen Wintemute, the handgun’s slide mirrors the changing symbolism of cowboys, soldiers and tough-talking detectives in society.
“I’d like to feel we’re starting to outgrow some of the icons that led to our reliance on firearms to solve problems,” said Wintemute, director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC Davis. “I sense more and more people in their daily lives are being harder hit by the consequences of firearms.”
Celebrating the Trend
Gun control forces are ecstatic.
“We hope it reflects growing awareness of the danger of guns,” said Luis Tolley, Western regional director of Handgun Control Inc. “Bringing a gun into the house is not a protective act. You’re only putting your family at risk.”
Others suggest more prosaic reasons for the steady decline in handgun sales in California.
“The crime rate is down, there’s been no serious civil disturbance or a mad serial killer running around,” said Westminster Police Chief James Cook. People feel more secure, he added, “real or imagined.”
The statewide plunge in handgun sales is trumpeted by some law enforcement officers as proof that tougher sentencing laws (including sentences for crimes in which guns are used) and community-based policing are succeeding.
“Crime is down to the lowest level since 1967, so it only follows that gun sales are down to the levels of the 1970s,” said state Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren. “Despite what the television news shows us each night, Californians feel safer now than they have in decades.”
Police departments are recovering fewer guns, although it’s unclear whether that’s because of the lower crime rate or because fewer guns are in circulation. And the estimated number of firearms deaths has dipped nationwide--32,000 last year compared with about 35,000 the year before.
Expert Tells of ‘Saturation’ Point
According to the industry, law enforcement and polls, Americans own about 200 million firearms; up to 85 million of those are handguns.
“There’s been this saturation of the marketplace,” said Julius Wachtel, a gun expert who recently retired as a special agent for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. “If you see a downturn, it’s not the enthusiast, but the person who buys for defensive purposes.”
And unlike cars or computers, guns don’t need replacement every few years. Quality firearms are made to last a lifetime.
That’s not to say that all gun business is off. Sales of shotguns and rifles are up, giving California a 0.36% overall increase in firearms sold in 1997 over the previous year. Nationally, handgun sales are weak, while long guns have fared somewhat better.
But it is handgun sales that are typically examined for their potential significance because they are most commonly used in crimes involving firearms. Nationwide, 57% of all murders in 1993 were committed with handguns, compared with 8% for long guns.
Dealers are used to the cyclical nature of gun sales, but sense something bigger this time.
“It’s gone a little up, a little down, and about every 10 years it comes way down,” said a longtime dealer in Orange County who spoke on condition of anonymity. “It goes up again, but only so far. It never goes back where it was.”
“Many wholesalers have just closed up,” he added. “On a normal Tuesday, I’d have five salesmen come in trying to get me to take their business. Today, I have one.”
The dealer also blames the industry and the public’s deep division over guns for the depressed market.
“The only way for the industry to survive is we’ve got to lower the death count,” he said.
Although the murder rate, including gun-related killings, has been declining in recent years, about 100 people a day die of gunshot wounds in this country.
Shooting enthusiasts and industry experts acknowledge that more people are wary of guns.
“I definitely sense an increased misperception of firearms,” said Delfay. In New Jersey, a shooting range that had operated for 61 years without incident in the basement of a school “was closed, just because it was a shooting range in the bottom of a school.”
Ricker of the shooting sports council said the industry needs “to work hard to reverse this perception out there that the industry makes money and doesn’t care when guns are misused.”
The $24 billion that the industry estimates is spent each year on guns and related items includes sales to police and the military and exports, as well as sales to individuals.
Ricker worries that the gun business is in danger of becoming the new tobacco industry of the political and legal world, open to lawsuits and regulation unless it responds to public concerns in a very different way.
“Our society has changed, and we need to be the leader in firearms responsibility,” said Ricker, who talks bluntly about the gun industry’s rude awakening when tobacco company leaders testified before Congress two years ago that nicotine in cigarettes is nonaddictive.
“I think it was a fatal mistake,” Ricker said. “You could see the legislative handwriting on the wall. It was a ridiculous assertion. We made a decision we weren’t going to fall into that trap of statements the general public finds not credible.”
Safer Models on the Way
Instead of denying the dangers of guns, major gun manufacturers next year will voluntarily begin adding trigger locks. The industry is developing a high-tech “personalized” weapon that can be fired only by the owner.
The NRA has long been concerned about the state of the firearms industry. Nearly a decade ago, the NRA’s American Rifleman magazine observed: “There simply are too many manufacturers for a shrinking or stagnant market--the industry needs to find new markets to survive and prosper.”
Further alarm was sounded last year when Firearms Business, a report for gun marketers, said that “the market desperately needs something to inject a little life into it.”
Some companies are trying to rejuvenate the market by finding new customers, especially focusing on security-minded women, a market they have aggressively sought for 10 years.
Other factors may be at work in falling sales, including the impact of government controls on guns and dealers.
Several years ago, the federal government clamped down on the number of federal firearms licenses because cities were complaining that many licensed home-based dealers were illegally selling guns right out the back door. (Some license holders didn’t sell firearms at all and only obtained a license to purchase guns interstate for their own collections.)
Under federal pressure, the number of federal firearms licenses nationwide has plummeted from more than 200,000 to an estimated 79,000.
“If there are fewer dealers, there is less availability, that’s the assumption,” said Jon Vernick, assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research in Baltimore.
Los Angeles had about 1,400 dealer license holders just four years ago; today it has about 185, said Det. Mark Warschaw of the LAPD gun unit, which monitors gun dealers as part of its responsibilities.
During that time, the number of commercial dealers dwindled from 125 to about 80, he said. One reason has been rigorous city regulations that, among other things, require gun shop owners to maintain a $1-million liability insurance policy.
“The city is trying to cut back on gun violence,” said Warschaw. “The way to do that is to not have guns in the city.”
Demographic shifts also appear to be influencing a gradual decrease in the percentage of armed households.
A 1996 survey for the Police Foundation found that men who came of age just after World War II were most inclined to acquire firearms, followed by the baby boomers.
“Proportionately, fewer households own guns now than in the 1960s and 1970s, and the younger cohorts are entering gun ownership at slower rates than previous cohorts,” the survey said.
The Harris poll showing a decline in gun ownership contained a significant observation: “The sharp drop in reported gun ownership in the latest survey may reflect some unwillingness to admit to having a gun in the house.”
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Gun Sales Fade
Handgun sales in Southern California and throughout the state have declined to less than half the peak reached around the time of the Los Angeles riots.
Statewide: 204,409
Los Angeles County: 46,337
Orange County: 23,224
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Making Guns Smarter
The advent of “smart guns” could make handgun deaths less likely in the future. The technology is still in the testing stages and will initially be available only on police weapons. It could find its way into general production two or three years thereafter. How a smart pistol works:
(1) User grips gun
(2) Gun sends radio signal to user’s battery- powered transponder
(3) Transponder sends back coded signal; if codes match, actuator allows gun to be fired
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Features of Colt Smart Gun
* Directionally loaded antenna receives signals only from behind
* Indicator shows user “enabled/disabled” status
* Enabling range approximately eight inches from transponder
* Looks like any gun; not obviously a “smart” gun
* Fail-safe can be activated if electronics fail
* Enabling may eventually be by voice or fingerprint
* Will cost $300 to $400 more than standard pistol
Sources: Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, Orange County sheriff-coroner, Colt’s manufacturing company
Graphics reporting by RAY TESSLER and TOM REINKEN
