Nudge, with all due respect, your attempt to make a comparison to the auto industry just demonstrated clearly how little you know about the auto industry.
Now let's go back to your comparison of lower end guns. Two things to consider.
First, tariffs don't happen by chance. They are put in place as protectionist measures, for better or worse. And they have an impact. The impact in America is that the gun industry could pump out the volumes of guns required to keep the factories in business. So they did, and they built the guns they could get away with in that lower end protected market. Tariffs ALWAYS distort the market.
Second, with no tariffs, the Brit and Belgian gun industry would have swamped America at the lower end. And, as in any competitive commercial market, the makers would have responded to the demands of that marker, as evidenced by what sells and what doesn't, and if heavier, stouter guns were in demand, they would have made them and that's what you would see dominating the lower end used SxS market now.
