Maybe you should look again at that I wrote.
I said that the LEO & Govt contracts drive the market because the are the foundation for the economy of scale built into the market. I did not say they make up the bulk of the pistols sales in the country. They are however contracts which create minimum production levels that make overall production cheaper. Also if you add in LEO sales to the mix a huge chunk of that 3.6 million pistols will be striker fired Glocks, Sig & S&Ws. Nothing you linked to refutes what I stated.
Also 3.6 million produced does not mean 3.6 million sold. The commercial market right now is soft and the gun manufacturers are suffering from over production in 2017 and early 2018.
Look at the SP2022 there is a reason Sig can sell them for $400-$500 depending on configuration the French contract granted them economy of scale and paid for the R&D. Either way it does not matter. Striker fired guns made of plastic are dominating the market. To believe otherwise is being willfully ignorant.
And so you're inserting your own theories with zero facts to back them up.
That was 3.6 MILLION commercial pistol sales in
one year. I think we can safely say there will be about
16 MILLION commercial pistol sales in the
last five years.
I wasn't saying anything about striker vs. hammer or semi vs revolver for that matter. I was just stating the fact that while
DOD may buy 100K pistols per year (did you see that it was a
multi-year contract ?), civilians buy many, many, many, many ... more times that and each of those is at a higher price than those under contract. Go check out the prices that the DoD and other agencies pay and tell me you would rather buy at the best street prices you can find.
Go back and read what I posted. You can think what you want about the gov't setting fads but IMHO the shot show and magazine / youtube, etc are MUCH more important.
If the Military / LEO market was all that important then why are so many revolvers still sold. They should have gone the way of the DoDo when the 1911 was adopted ? Maybe there will be no more black pistols because the DoD is buying FDE ? Hold on, I need to sell all my Glock stock since the DoD ordered Sigs ... Of course S&W went out of business decades ago and Ruger simply doesn't exist
Marketing, marketing, Marketing ...
Remember the .44 magnum shortage ?
PS. Do you believe the great firearms and ammo shortage of 2013 or so ? Do you think the DoD and other agencies suddenly bought all the guns & ammo or that it was fueled by fears of what 2A restrictions might be enacted by the gov't ?
Here is an interesting article on US firearms manufacturing in response to that:
There was so much paranoia that many ammo makers felt compelled to look into it and then publish explanations. Also, the National Rifle Association (NRA) investigated and the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the trade association for gun, ammo, and related businesses, looked into the reasons for the shortages. They all came to the conclusion that consumer demand—fueled by record high gun sales—was behind the shortages.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/frankm...-fueled-a-manufacturing-revival/#40db5058667b