July 9 (Bloomberg) -- Permissive U.S. gun controls rewarded pistol, shotgun and sniper-rifle manufacturers worldwide after Americans spent more on buying and selling weapons than anyone else on earth, the Small Arms Survey said.

The U.S. exported around 22 percent and imported around 27 percent of the world’s small arms, light weapons and ammunition between 2000 and 2006, the Geneva-based group said today in its 344-page “Small Arms Survey 2009.” The $4 billion trade may be a “significant underestimate” because not all countries report their military exports.

“The U.S. is by far the largest importer of pistols and revolvers, sporting shotguns and small-caliber ammunition,” the study said. “Increases in demand in the U.S. explain almost half of the global rise in exports of small arms.” The research group is financed by the foreign ministries of Belgium, Canada, Finland, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the U.K.

Companies like Austria’s Glock GmbH, the world’s biggest pistol exporter, and Alliant Techsystems Inc., the largest ammunition supplier to the U.S. military, are benefiting from rising sales. Authorized small-arms trades rose 28 percent, or $653 million, between 2000 and 2006, according to the survey.

Researchers used 2006 data because it was the “most comprehensive available,” said Helsinki-based Nicholas Marsh, an author of the report, today in a telephone interview. Countries routinely enter export data into the United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database two years after a product has been sold, he said.

“A country can become a major global player just by developing an export market in the U.S,” the report said, citing HS Produkt d.o.o., a Croatian pistol maker that ships 98 percent of its products to the U.S. and increased sales to $27 million in 2006 from $1 million in 2000.

Weapons Regulations

U.S. gun sales have benefited from the country’s weapons- culture and regulations, according to the survey. A 10-year ban on U.S. assault-weapon sales expired in 2004.

“The production of civilian versions of assault rifles and high-caliber sniper rifles is mainly concentrated in the U.S., where the country’s gun culture embraces, and permissive regulations facilitate, the ownership of semi-automatic assault rifles and sniper rifles by civilians,” the report said.

Americans are buying more guns in anticipation of potentially tighter regulation of firearms under President Barack Obama’s administration, Merriman Curhan Ford & Co analyst Eric Wold said June 19. The U.S. recession, the worst in half a century, has also contributed to gun sales as people seek to protect themselves against crime, he said.

U.S. export dominance in military small arms has “waned slightly,” the survey said. In 2006, the country controlled 49 percent of the export market for military small arms, down from 68 percent in 2000.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jonathan Tirone in Vienna at jtirone@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: July 9, 2009 06:24 EDT