Kansas 11th in WalletHub survey of States Most Dependent on the Gun Industry

Gun sales have been down since Donald Trump won the White House, with a 6.1 percent decline in 2018 alone. While that’s good news to some, it could be a bad sign for state economies relying heavily on the firearms industry. New data from the personal finance website WalletHub shows that Kansas is a state that relies on firearms more than many others.

“It ranked 11th most dependent,” said WalletHub analyst Jill Gonzalez. “That really comes down to the industry itself, there are a lot of direct contributions to the economy. Everything from firearms industry jobs, to dealers and importers, and firearms and ammunition manufacturers per capita.”

By one estimate, guns contributed more than $52 billion to the U.S. economy and generated over $6.8 billion in federal and state taxes in 2018.

“We looked at 17 metrics in general,” said Gonzalez. “In addition to those direct factors, we looked to things like gun prevalence, gun ownership rates, gun sales, gun ads and gun politics.”

The gun politics criteria was measured by financial contributions to gun rights or gun control members of Congress.