This Day Editorial Obituaries Letters Rec. The American handgun market has dropped off so steeply that some industry experts worry it may never fully recover, but Cowlitz County may be bucking that trend. Local gun shops report only slight decreases in sales this year, and local law enforcement agencies say they're issuing the same or slightly higher number of firearms permits.
Sales are about even.
He said he's seen an overall increase in rifle and shotgun sales, but pistol sales have been going down slightly. John Bridges, of The Gun Shop in Longview, said his handgun sales decreased slightly since last year, when sales were up last year because many people bought guns in fear of the Y2K bug. Combined production for domestic and overseas handgun sales tumbled 52 percent nationally between 1993 and 1999, according to an Associated Press analysis of the latest data from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The 1.8 million handguns manufactured in 1998 was the lowest figure in 31 years. It's a different world.