***Prices of quality firearms were only lower when there were millions of military surplus firearms on the market.***
This is one reason so many New England congressmen were in favor of banning the sale of 5 shot bolt action army surplus rifles in the 1960s, to protect their local manufacturers such as Remington, Winchester and Savage.
They used the murder of John Kennedy with such a military rifle to get a ban on imports of these “crime guns”, as they were called.
Those same states that used to protect America’s firearm industry now want to destroy that industry or drive them out of their state.