The Manufacturing Myth
Everyone knows that Americans can’t manufacture anything anymore, we just aren’t competitive on labor costs. In order to have the stuff we want, we have to send those manufacturing jobs overseas. Sure it destroys the working class but those people can learn to code or better yet get low paying service jobs at dollar stores selling stuff workers in China made. Progress! The free market at work!
It is pretty hard to get anything made in America, from electronics to clothing to just about everything else, all of it is made in China or some third world shithole full of child labor sweatshops. As a nation we are pretty much resigned to grumbling about everything being made in China while still buying stuff made in China.
Not to mention that China is a controlled economy with a billion people making low wages and living in cramped conditions most Americans would find intolerable.
But is that paradigm true? Can Americans really not compete with China and other Asian countries when it comes to manufacturing? I don’t think it really is, not on everything, and the big reason is that there is one thing that Americans make that is affordable and high quality:
Guns.
America makes guns. Lots and lots and LOTS of guns. From “low end” stuff to super high end firearms costing multiple thousands of dollars, like Staccato 2011s that run from a couple grand to over three thousand for competition guns. There are guns for every price point and every budget.
This video helps demonstrate that as The Honest Outlaw tests a Bear Creek Arsenal AR-15 and finds it to be actually pretty decent.
Let me say clearly that BCA is not my first or fifth or tenth choice for a primary or back-up rifle. Thanks to my dealer discounts I am in a position to get higher end ARs and BCA does have something of a reputation for the occasional quality issue. Still, for the vast majority of AR owners it is probably more than adequate. Bear Creek makes their firearms in North Carolina and has something like 220 configurations and calibers in their line-up (see here).
On the other end of the spectrum you have outfits like Sons of Liberty Gunworks and Daniel Defense who make very expensive rifles for people who like to mock “Jus’ as Gud” poors. Between the two extremes are an enormous array of manufacturers from Palmetto State and Anderson to the big names like Ruger and Smith & Wesson and the smaller mid-tier places like Stag and Rock River. Of course you can also mix and match as the parts needed to make an AR are also widely available and made in the US from barrels to detent springs.
Pistols are the same, although I would caution that there are brands you should never, ever buy, most specifically Hi-Point and SCCY, both making absolute garbage. I refuse to carry either brand as an FFL. Right now you can buy all sorts of handguns for under $500 that are well made, reliable and accurate for the majority of shooters from places like Ruger, S&W and many others. The most popular handguns for a long time running are made by Glock in Austria but the rest of the industry has caught up to and I think surpassed Glock, and of course most serious shooters who own Glocks replace most of the Glock parts with after-market parts made in America.
You can probably tell, I am not much of a Glock fan.
Even cheaper guns made overseas are mostly made in Europe, like the Springfield line-up that is made in Croatia, and the garbage “tactical” shotguns made in Turkey. There doesn’t seem to be much of a market for guns made in China, other than ChiCom AKs or surplus SKSs. Even the AK market, once a near monopoly of former Warsaw Pact nations, now has a significant competitor in the domestic AK market thanks to Palmetto State Armory.
It is also worth noting that small arms manufacturing is governed and heavily regulated by both international treaties and American rules, most notably the International Traffic in Arms Regulations or ITAR. Technically if I was buying compete lowers and complete uppers, pushing the pins in and making a complete firearm, I would need to change my FFL from a Type 1 (Dealer in firearms other than destructive devices) to a Type 7 (Manufacturer of firearms other than destructive devices), and would also be governed in addition by ITAR as a “manufacturer”.
What this tells me is that Americans can indeed manufacture competitively, especially if our laws were designed to aid our manufacturing base like most nations instead of letting our companies try to compete with subsidized industries overseas. Can we make the sort of consumer goods on sale at Amazon Slime Days, cheap chink crap that will fall apart after a few uses? Maybe not but who the hell wants that stuff? We end up buying the same thing over and over because they fall apart. Clothing shrinks and the seams give out, shoes fall apart after six months, household goods break after a short time of usage. I am confident U.S. manufacturers could make higher priced but still competitive products that would last longer. After all, we can make guns and those are pretty complex. An AR has what, 200 pieces and parts counting all the springs and crap, and we can make those by the millions.
An economic populism that protects American manufacturing as a national security and quality of life issue would be a powerful political platform. Trump sort of talked about this but ended up getting distracted by personality squabbles, terrible personnel decisions and letting his daughter and son-in-law interfere with governance. The economy of a nation should work for the interests of the people of a nation, not just for the profit of corporations and shareholders. That is important but it shouldn’t completely overshadow the people who actually work in America. We would be far better off with more people making stuff than having everyone working at meaningless service economy jobs or selling cheaply made Chinese crap at dollar stores. As the gun industry shows us, we can do it if we can only find the political willpower to do so.