My statement had much more to do with business than politics, Stanton(are we really getting that formal around here?
)
As someone who engages in international firearms sales and importation, I will say you are off base on who is hurt by tariffs, it is the consumer. I write those checks and so do my clients, they are painful and not for the overseas seller.
The last item I bought out of Merry England was a pair of bare 27 X 1 1/4 bicycle rims. The seller happily discounted them to cover the tariff, which, was not the tariff levied on England, but, the tariff levied on Taiwan, which is where the rims were produced.
The shipping ate more money than the tariffs, by far.
I look at gun prices in Europe and England now and simply can’t believe what is happening. A beat up, used hard Charlin mid grade was a hard $3K, circa 1997 in France, and I figured at the time I could probably hope to get $500-$600 bucks for it here in the states. Rich people hunted in France, and the prices of guns reflected that.
Those beat up Charlins are 10% of what they were back then. The recent immigrants from former French colonies have no interest in hunting, especially the pigs that are destroying the countryside, no interest in being French, learning to speak French, or contributing to the generous welfare state that is France at the moment. I’m no expert, but, the societal fabric would seem to be fraying in that part of the world, and I don’t see it going back to the way it was, not anytime soon, for sure.
You can bltch and complain about recent tariffs all you want, Steve, but, if you are honest, you know as well as everyone else right here that you aren’t in a growth industry. If you were, the tariffs wouldn’t matter one bit.
Best,
Ted
