These 13 States Have Multi-Billion Dollar Gun Economies

Special Report

Published: November 15, 2023 11:21 am

The number of firearms circulating in the United States it difficult to accurately calculate, but the most common estimate from a 2018 report by the Small Arms Survey estimated there were 393.3 million guns in civilian possession, or about 120 guns for every 100 people — making the U.S. the most armed civilian population on Earth — by a very long shot.

Considering that U.S. consumers purchased nearly 60 million guns between 2020 and 2022, according to The Trace, a nonprofit news organization covering U.S. gun violence, the number of firearms in the country today can safely be estimated to top 400 million, even accounting for the attrition of guns that are removed from the population. (These are every state’s grade on gun laws.)

Such an enormous U.S. market means lots of jobs — and a significant contribution to the economy. (These are the 22 most popular guns purchased online last year.)

According to the National Shooting Sports Foundation’s Firearm and Ammunition Industry Economic Impact report for 2023, the companies that manufacture, distribute, and sell firearms, ammunition, and hunting equipment, as well as their suppliers and ancillary industries, generated nearly 394,000 jobs across the 50 states and the District of Columbia in 2022. Combined the industry’s direct and indirect economic output was nearly $81 billion.

To identify the states with multibillion dollar gun economies, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the NSSF’s report. States and the District of Columbia were ranked by the total economic output from gun sales, which include direct contributions such as jobs, wages, and business taxes, contributions from suppliers, and indirect contributions. The federal gun business tax, total gun jobs, and total and average gun job wages all came from the report. For each state and D.C. we also added gross domestic product for 2022 in current U.S. dollars from the Bureau of Economic Analysis and population data from the Census Bureau’s 2022 American Community Survey.

In 28 states, the gun economy has a total output of over $1 billion. In 16 states, firearms-related economies are more than $2 billion.

As one would expect, the country’s most populous states and largest economies have the most firearms-industry direct and indirect jobs, including states with stronger gun-control laws like California and New York. In these two states, the NSSF says the gun industry supports nearly 42,000 direct and indirect jobs and generates a combined direct and indirect economic output of about $9.1 billion.

One outlier on this list is New Hampshire. The state has only about 1.4 million residents but ranks ninth among the 50 states and the District of Columbia in economic output at $3 billion. It also ranks 14th in the number of jobs in the industry at nearly 11,000, while the average annual wage for a worker in the industry of more than $101,000 ranks second. Major firearms manufacturing plants from Sturm, Ruger and Company, and Sig Sauer have plants in New Hampshire, whose state motto is “Live Free or Die.”

Here are states with multi-billion-dollar firearm economies.