Post
by timmy » Mon Aug 17, 2009 10:55 pm
My guess would be that there would be some "shaking out," were India to enter the arms market. One thing about this article, I don't think it envisions civilian firearms at all. I think that the arrangements that were proposed were oriented toward the military markets.
This is not necessarily a good thing for the average citizen that wants to buy a firearm. For instance, in the USA, both Colt and S&W make a lot of arms for military and police units. S&W has long been pro-control as a political move to entice the government and police to do business with them. As a business, they must feel that there is more money in making big government contract deals, rather than selling to civilians. Colt, I know less about, but from what I do know, I would say they think the same way. Because I won't support gun companies that favor gun control, I do not buy new S&Ws or Colts for this reason.
Still, I think that companies are generally amoral: Their only morality is money, and if they can make a good profit, they will do it.
I think that, if India would open up manufacture and import/export for businesses, if Indian companies could put out a reasonably priced SxS or O/U, for instance, that offered a good quality/price advantage to US or other civilian markets, they would get buyers. Some companies would go broke because their products were inferior, and some (probably more) would fail because their marketing forces could not succeed in getting distributors (at least, in the USA) to carry their line of goods.
My theory on business is that a good idea is 20% of success and that the other 80% is marketing and sales. At least in the USA, even pure junk can be sold if it is marketed and sold well. We see it all the time.
Regarding the ammo, look at our USA ammo market now: hardly any of it is made in the USA. Some comes from Serbia, some from the Czech Republic, some from Russia. Often it is rebranded as Winchester or whatever, but it is made elsewhere. The marketing groups sell it and it is made where ever. If the Indian government took the wraps off of Indian industry, someone would come along and give ammo manufacture a try. If they could make it to a quality high enough and at a price low enough to entice the marketing groups to bite, then they'd get business.
One example or tactic here would be targeting WalMart. WalMart buys their stuff from all kinds of companies, and they dictate price and specifications. If a good Indian businessman, free of government hassle and laws, could go to WalMart and say: "We will supply you XXX amount of .30-06, .30-30, .22lr and 12ga shotgun a year for $YYY, I'll bet WalMart might be tempted to pick it up, even though they've been moving away from the gun business in many stores.
The same would be true for sporting goods stores, like Academy, Dick's, or even Cabela's.
I may be assuming wrong, but even tho the case of the 9mm for the military, I would bet that if the British MOD had several possible Indian sources and the government didn't give advantages to one factory over another, someone would smell money and make what the British wanted with regards to quality and price, and make some money in the process.
I've got to think that the problem here has to do with government interference, not in abilities or business acumen.
