Why Gunmakers Would Rather Sell AR-15s Than Handguns

The American retail marketplace for firearms is a tale of two guns: There’s the handgun, and there’s the modern sporting rifle. Both sell by the millions each year, but the modern sporting rifle—a category whose best-known product is the AR-15—commands far more attention from manufacturers, retailers and buyers as well as gun-control activists.

For the industry, this lopsided dynamic has less to do with how these guns are misused—handguns are more often used in crimes—and more to do with pricing power and profit margins. For every 100 newly manufactured guns sold in America, according to industry estimates, as many as 35 are modern sporting rifles that are variants of the AR-15. But that portion of the market accounts for a disproportionate amount of gun-industry profits.