Nice try, but economies of scale have everything to do with this.
Do you even know what "economies of scale" means? I ask that given your comments...
You have mentioned the Leatherman repeatedly. Again, it is a red herring. The markets for Leatherman tools and firearms have absolutely nothing to do with each other. The Leatherman was first released in 1983. It was a new product and was expensive--a lot of new tooling had to get paid for. However, Leatherman tools fulfilled an unmet need and the lack of competition (for a time) meant that they could expand sales immensely. Therefore, the Leatherman had tremendous potential to exploit economies of scale to reduce the price over time as volume increased from zero to whatever millions they are now.
On really? Red-herring, huh? I gave several examples. All "red-herrings", huh? In all actuality they are great examples. They are all made in the USA. Made out of steel and most are sporting goods. FWIW, I'm sure Leatherman's production was fully ramped-up LONG, LONG before 1988 (that's 20 years ago.)
Those same "economies of scale" can and have been exploited in gunmaking as well.
The Colt Single Action Army has been made (not always continuously) since 1873 (I also get to cherry pick an example.) The market for new SAAs has been steady but stable for a long time. Since 1983 there simply has not been the explosive increase in demand to drive production volume up so that Colt could take advantage of economies of scale. Moreover, the SAA is a far more complex machine to build than the Leatherman, so there is less Colt could have done to reduce the price without compromising quality.
Are you suggesting that Colt's procurement and manufacturing processes would really be that different and yield materially lower costs if there was some incremental level of greater demand? I seriously doubt that would be the case. Possibly a little, but not much. If you like, we can break the procurement and manufacturing process down step by step if you like.
Ruger makes more single action revolvers then ever before and their prices are at a all-time high despite an increased market demand.
Make sense?
Why is it that Ping golf clubs are the same price or cheaper today then they were in 1988? How come Leopold scopes are 2-3x more expensive today like Ruger revolvers?