The remaining stores most be a lot more profitable. I wish your conclusion was true, but I don't think it is.

but I will believe the conclusions of the VPC over an anonymous Internet poster. And for what it's worth, these are not my conclusions, but those of people who do these studies professionally.

The study didn't conclude that fewer GUNS are being sold, but that fewer unscrupulous dealers are selling guns to criminals.

The way I remember it is that a whole hella lot of people had ffl's that were just individuals working out of their house...no real store or anything, mostly just acting as a licensed dealer to receive firearms ordered by others from catalogues, etc.

I might have that all wrong though.

I seem to remember reading something like that a few years ago. If you had an FFL/01 (dealer) license you had to demonstrate that you were running a business rather than getting guns at dealer pricing for yourself and friends. There is one type of FFL that is very easy to obtain (if you don't have a criminal record) and that is an FFL/03 Collector of Curios and Relics (C&R). It costs $30 and is good for three years and you can send and receive firearms with it. The gun must be at least 50 years old or be on the BATFE's list of approved C & R firearms. You can even buy a machine gun with a C & R license (if your state allows that)

It's good that gun sales are done by fewer, more legitimate dealers than in the past. But, you said that the American people are reaching a conclusion that is less in favor of an armed society. Gun sales in the US have skyrocketed since 1994 - the number of armed Americans have greatly increased.

It would be like saying that the Chinese have become more conscious about elephant extinction because the number of ivory sellers decreased, while at the same time the amount of ivory being sold tripled.

are buying more guns. You are obviously not interested in the facts, only in your NRA dogma. Please take your pro-gun stance to the other Group where you will feel more at home.

n/t

for self/home defense bought what they needed. After the big booms, it's now eased up. It may not even have much to do with attitudes changing. I'm one that just has a few guns. I bought exactly what I wanted. They aren't going to wear out at the pace I use them. I could see trading one or two and spending a little more upgrading, but no one is likely to ever make much more from my gun purchases.

I work a couple gun shows in my area. Those and several more I know of have been down by about a third for some time. That has weeded out a lot of the sellers.

I was laughing at a lot of the people at the shows supporting Trump and with the "Hillary For Prison" shirts and all that. Hillary winning and a new wave of "she's gonna git yer gunz" hysteria would have been the best thing for them. But they can't pass up an opportunity to vote against their own interests.

to avoid Obama taking their guns. More guns are sold in parking lots than stores.