news
. "A recent Associated Press article forecasting the demise of the United States handgun industry was misleading and was a prime example of the news media selecting the statistics they needed to support their preconceived conclusion," commented Bob Delfay, president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
"In an effort to prove an ominous 50 percent decline in handgun sales, the AP reporter used the extraordinarily high sales year of 1993 and low sales in 1999 to calculate their decline," Delfay said.
"No one in industry doubts that handgun sales are currently very depressed, but at NSSF we suggested to the AP that a more realistic way to position the current depressed sales would be to compare them against the most recent 10-year average (1989-1998).
Over this 10-year span handguns sales have averaged 1,890,000 units annually. This would translate into a nearly 30% decrease in 1998 from the 10-year average but not the precipitous 50 percent decline that the AP story tried to paint."
Note: Although the AP referenced 1999 sales, 1998 is the latest full year for which sales are available.
Uploaded: 4/23/2001
Uploaded: 4/23/2001