U.S. manufactured the most guns ever in 2016

American gun manufacturers made more than 11 million firearms in 2016 — the most ever recorded, federal statistics indicate.

The Annual Firearms Manufacturing and Export Report compiled last month shows gun makers distributed 11,497,441 firearms into the commercial market that year, including 4.7 million handguns and 4.2 million rifles.

The year 2016 remains the industry’s strongest on record by several measures. Aside from the manufacturing numbers, background checks topped 27.4 million and publicly-traded gun makers — including Smith & Wesson and Sturm, Ruger and Co. — reported record-breaking earnings. Analysts pinpoint Donald Trump’s electoral victory in November for bursting an eight-year sales bubble bolstered by former President Barack Obama’s gun control rhetoric. AMFER data shows gun makers doubled their output between 2009 and 2016.

AMFER releases on a two-year delay and has been tracking firearm manufacturing in the United States for more than 30 years. Manufacturing increased nearly 23 percent over 2015, according to the report, and has nearly quadrupled since 1986 — the first year for data is available.

AMFER 2016 Data

Pistols (by type)

.22: 447,315

.25: 13,141

.32: 10,175

.380: 1,130,459

9mm: 2,281,450

.50: 837,535

Total: 4,720,075

Revolvers (by type)

.22: 320,775

.32: 7,851

.357 MAG: 182,564

.38 SPEC: 248,144

.44 MAG: 51,451

.50: 45,506

Total: 856,291

Rifles: 4,239,335

Shotguns: 848,617

Misc. Firearms: 833,123

The post U.S. manufactured the most guns ever in 2016 appeared first on Guns.com.