SIC 3484 Small Arms

Encyclopedia of American Industries | 2005 | Copyright

SIC 3484
SMALL ARMS

This category includes establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing small firearms or parts for small firearms. Small firearms, defined as having a bore of 30 millimeters (mm) or less, include pistols, revolvers, rifles, shotguns, and submachine guns. This category also includes establishments that manufacture weapons with bores greater than 30 mm but that nevertheless are carried and employed by individuals, including grenade launchers and heavy field machine guns. Establishments primarily engaged in manufacturing artillery and mortars having bores greater than 30 mm are classified in SIC 3489: Ordnance and Accessories, Not Elsewhere Classified.

NAICS Code(s)

332994 (Small Arms Manufacturing)

Industry Snapshot

In 2002 there were approximately 400 gun makers in the United States, which together generated annual sales of approximately $1.38 billion. Nearly all of the major gun manufacturers in the United States were privately owned companies; the only public company was Sturm, Ruger & Co.

Historically, the small-arms industry has been cyclical and subject to many external pressures, including the general state of the economy, worldwide military conflicts, and public and political vagaries concerning private ownership of firearms. For example, gun sales increased during 1999 as the nation prepared for the Y2K bug. There was generalized fear that computers would not roll over correctly to the year 2000, thus creating havoc with many of the nation's economic and political infrastructures. Although the fears proved unfounded, many prepared for the uncertain times by buying a gun. Gun sales rose again in the days following the terrorist attacks of September 11,2001. In both cases, gun marketers sold their products to many first-time gun owners. Gun makers also continued ongoing battles in court into the 2000s over liability issues related to criminal use of guns.

Organization and Structure

Many small-arms companies began operation in the late nineteenth century in the Connecticut River Valley between Hartford and Springfield, Massachusetts, which soon became known as Gun Valley because of its concentration of armories. Because of this long tradition, several small-arms companies that no longer had manufacturing facilities in Gun Valley maintained headquarters there at the start of the twenty-first century.

Following the Great Depression, many surviving small-arms companies diversified or were purchased by large corporations. The trend toward amalgamation reversed itself in the 1980s when two of the largest corporations in the industry, Colt Industries and the Olin Corp., divested themselves of poorly performing firearms divisions to form stand-alone companies. One of those new companies, the U.S. Repeating Arms Co., maker of Winchester rifles, was then sold to Belgian firearms conglomerate Fabrique Nationale Herstal, and then acquired by the French government-owned GIAT Industries. Fabrique Nationale and Italian firearms maker Pietro Beretta Fabbrica Amri also had large manufacturing facilities in the United States.

Background and Development

The small-arms industry played an important part in both the historical development of the United States and in the myths and ideals that accompanied that development. Early to mid-nineteenth-century guns pioneered the use of interchangeable standardized parts, the technology that gave rise to modern manufacturing. Moreover, guns bearing the names Remington, Winchester, and Colt were associated with the settlement of the Old West, Manifest Destiny, and the development of the United States as a world power.

Although many prominent craftsmen produced firearms in colonial America, gun making as an industry did not truly begin until 1775, when the Continental Congress established the Committee of Safety, whose responsibilities included ensuring that the Continental Army had sufficient firearms. The Committee of Safety established specifications for manufacturing flintlock muskets and awarded contracts to various American gun makers. In 1794 Congress established a national armory at Springfield, Massachusetts that stored and manufactured muskets for military use. A second armory was established at Harper's Ferry, Virginia in 1796. The armory at Harper's Ferry would eventually be burned in 1861 to keep it out of the hands of Confederate forces. The Springfield armory was in operation until 1975.

In 1808, as tensions mounted between the United States and England (which would eventually erupt into the War of 1812), the federal armories tooled up to manufacture 40,000 muskets a year. Private gun makers were also awarded contracts to manufacture between 2,500 and 10,000 muskets each, with the goal of supplying nearly 100,000 militiamen. The federal armories provided "pattern" muskets for the private manufacturers to copy.

Early Innovators. One of the earliest gun makers to receive a government contract was Eli Whitney, best known as the inventor of the cotton gin, who had established an armory in New Haven, Connecticut in 1798. Whitney was a Yale-educated engineer who realized that the most efficient and cost-effective way to make guns was to manufacture interchangeable parts that could then be assembled by unskilled workers. Although...

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