Really! I plan to research that. That is shocking, and a terrible sign of things to come.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0314/p02s01-ussc.html
Why gun dealers have dwindled...
From my point of view, this is a “death penalty by bureaucracy”. The federal government knows that gun rights are popular, but they care more what other countries think.
Canada, Mexico, Europe, Australia, Japan, and most everybody else are firm believers in strict gun control, and continually bitch to the US about our guns getting to their criminals.
As an important aside, just recently it was realized that ammunition is the Achilles’ heel of guns, that there are so few international ammo manufacturers that if they are controlled, guns are controlled. So in the next few years look for efforts to restrict the industry, and control the chemicals that can be used to make your own bullets.
That is, “lead is a toxic agent, so it should need a license to be sold”, and “gunpowder can be used by terrorists, so should not be sold to the public.” They probably would come up with some lame rationale to restrict the sale of brass cartridges as well.