Glenn Hall examines the gun industry as an industry:

Guns are big business in America – so big, in fact, that despite making vastly more firearms than any other nation, the U.S. also is the largest importer of handguns, rifles and shotguns.

Demand is so high, that on top of the 6.54 million pistols, revolvers, rifles, shotguns and other firearms made in America in 2011, an additional 3.25 million were brought in from other countries, according to records of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Domestic production grew by 1 million guns from the 2010 volume and imports increased by half a million.

All told, the firearms industry contributes more than $33 billion to the U.S. economy and supports about 220,000 jobs, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation. That’s more than double the North American payrolls of General Motors, which President Barack Obama called “a pillar of our economy” when he explained the decision to provide more taxpayer aid to help save the car maker in 2009.

Unlike GM, which employs 101,000 people in North America and 213,000 worldwide, the gun business is divided up among thousands of little companies with just a few big, recognizable brands like Ruger, Smith & Wesson and Remington. Big or small, companies making and selling firearms and ammunition provide jobs in every state. …

Still, politicians in states such as New York, which recently passed what Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo called “the toughest gun laws in the nation,” often make a distinction between support for gun control and opposition to firearms businesses and gun owners.

Cuomo has said he doesn’t think New York’s new laws will have a “significant impact” on Remington Arms, which was founded in Ilion, New York, and he has stated several times that the gun control measures he signed into law this year are “not about hunters, sportsmen or legal owners who use their guns appropriately.”

The NSSF estimates that New York-based firearms businesses contribute more than $1.2 billion to the economy and employ almost 8,000 New Yorkers — jobs the state has fought to protect with $5.5 million in subsidies and grants since 2007, according to the Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting. Those subsidies were approved prior to Cuomo taking office last year.

As other states consider following New York’s lead on gun control and the U.S. Congress debates stricter federal measures  following the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, the desire to prevent such tragedies will have to be weighed against the popularity of firearms among Americans and the potential impact on an industry that has been growing steadily, even through the recent recession. …

While dwarfed by mega-companies like ExxonMobil, which generated more than $450 billion in revenue last year, the sporting firearms industry’s revenue is on par with other members of the Fortune 500, including Hershey, Ryder and Avis. In terms of employment, the firearms industry would rank 21st on the Fortune 500 list, one notch ahead of GM, if all the independent gun-related businesses were rolled up into one. …

The far-flung nature of the gun industry obscures the role the industry plays in the economy, said Jake McGuigan, the director of government relations for the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

“There are a lot of smaller manufacturers that support a very large base of suppliers,” McGuigan said. “These kinds of small, independent businesses are really the backbone of the U.S. economy, not the GMs, Wal-Marts and other big businesses.”

The comparison of the gun industry to Government Motors — I mean General Motors — is enlightening. Since the gun industry is bigger than GM, if the Obama administration’s attack on our Second Amendment rights forces economic hardship on the gun industry, will the Obama administration propose to bail out the gun industry? (And, as of 2010, the last year for which numbers were available, the death rate per 100,000 population for cars was 20 percent higher than for guns.)

Unlike GM, deemed Too Big to Fail by the George W. Bush and Obama administrations, if one gun manufacturer were to close its doors, others would take its place. Economic development experts say having 10 businesses of 50 employees each is preferable to having one business of 500 employees. Ask Janesville about that.

On my appearance on Wisconsin Public Radio Friday (more about that tomorrow), my opponent took umbrage at the profits gunmakers are making these days. (Which means she is anti-business because profits are good.) Guns are figuratively flying off the shelves because gun-owners correctly see the Obama administration and many governors as trying to take away all of their guns.

Not only are gun control activists wrong about our constitutional rights, they’re also anti-business. Conversely, those who support business should be happy about the growth of this business, and should work to grow the gun industry in Wisconsin.