At a glance, most major life expenses have increased roughly 3x to 4x over 40 years. This sets a baseline expectation: if guns and ammo followed the same trend, we’d expect similar increases.

But they didn’t, at least not evenly across the board …

The mid-1980s marked the early adoption of high-capacity 9mm pistols, often called “Wonder Nines.”

The introduction of the Glock 17 into the U.S. market was particularly significant:

• Polymer frame construction (revolutionary at the time)
• Higher magazine capacity than revolvers
• Lower manufacturing cost

Law enforcement agencies began transitioning away from revolvers, a shift that would later drive massive civilian demand for 9mm pistols and ammunition.

This shift is one of the key reasons why 9mm ammo became so dominant (and eventually so affordable) by 2026 …

In 1986, a box of 9mm cost $22.50, or about $0.45 per round.

In 2026, it averages $10.00 per box, or $0.20 per round.

Even without adjusting for inflation, that’s a dramatic decrease. When adjusted for inflation, 9mm is significantly cheaper today than it was in the 1980s.

At the same time, less common calibers (.38 Special, .45 ACP) have become relatively more expensive due to lower production volume and niche demand.

Well, .45 ACP certainly isn’t a niche demand round for me because I shoot God’s round. Anyway, one thing they may have wanted to fold in what the cost of powder because of the war in Ukraine which if I’m not mistaken is driving pricing up and availability down and making it more difficult to meet velocity advertising on the boxes.

This is really a shame given that Ruger now owns Marlin and Marlin makes the best lever action rifles in the world.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT:
THE FOLLOWING RUGER SERIES GUNS ARE BEING SUSPENDED INDEFINITELY FROM PRODUCTION

SR1911
LC Carbine
PC Charger
PC Carbine
LC Charger
Redhawk
Super Redhawk
Blackhawk
Super Blackhawk
Single-Series revolvers
Vaquero
No. 1
77-Series rifles
Hawkeye
Ruger Precision

— Harvey’s Pistol & Pawn (@harveyspistols) October 13, 2026

A 14-month-old PUPPY ran to a cop the way puppies DO. THREE seconds later, two BULLETS. PARALYZED. Then DEAD.

His name was Herkimer. Loveland, Colorado. His family was just working on their truck in an empty lot.

The cop pulls in. Herkimer runs to him. No bite. Just a baby dog RUNNING.

Bang. Bang. Four days in intensive care. Herkimer NEVER came home.

And the cop, on his OWN bodycam: "I’m not in the business to get bit." Officer Mathew Grashorn.

Then they went after the OWNER, charging him with having a dangerous dog. DROPPED. The department called it reasonable. Federal judges REFUSED him immunity. Loveland PAID $675,000.

Seconds before, Bubba ran at the SAME cop. Jay called him back. Bubba lived. Herkimer got THREE seconds. Now he’s GONE.

Warning: the video shows the shooting.

https://t.co/pd5BjQO882

— ShadowPatriot (@ShadowPatriotUS) October 18, 2026

Please end qualified immunity for these pet killing bad cops.

— Sonny Shepherd (@ShepardSon54197) October 16, 2026

In September, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Gun Violence Solutions published a tract titled “Extreme Risk Protection Orders: A Clergy Resource Guide” (extreme risk protection orders are the gun control advocates’ preferred term for red flag gun confiscation orders). The document was authored alongside groups including Faiths United to Prevent Gun Violence, Faith Leaders for Ending Gun Violence, and Jewish Women International.

Another author was the Presbyterian Office of Public Witness, which the document described as “the public policy information and advocacy office for the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).” The “progressive” PCUSA currently hosts the guide on its website. Texas Democratic U.S. Senate candidate James Talarico, who has put his version of religion at the forefront of his campaign, trained at a PCUSA seminary.

Astute gun rights supporters will know that the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health bears the name of billionaire gun control financier Michael Bloomberg. For his part, Bloomberg appears to believe he can dictate terms to the divine.

Here’s the deal, buddy boy. Run from churches like that. This is an easy problem to solve. Don’t ever hook up with folks like that under any circumstances. Don’t take vows of submission to elders, don’t let clergy know you have weapons, and don’t open the door to tyrants who want to take your guns.

But this doesn’t surprise me about the PCUSA. They are lost, and have been for some time. Want to see an example of what I’m saying?

"We don’t use gendered language about God here, for good reason….’He’ ‘Father’ ‘Lord’ ‘He’ ‘Him’ ‘He’- I couldn’t even hear his message."

PCUSA ‘pastor’ explains how she couldn’t hear another man’s preaching because she was too upset/ distraught by the use of male pronouns. https://t.co/tg7b2v3DGp

— Protestia (@Protestia) September 28, 2026

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives released an Open Letter and Frequently Asked Questions explaining how it will treat ownership, transfer, and transportation of the National Firearms Act (NFA) firearms for which Congress eliminated the making and transfer taxes in the One Big Beautiful Bill.

Under ATF’s guidance, ATF will not enforce the requirements for individuals to apply and receive ATF approval before making or transferring short-barreled rifles, short-barreled shotguns, suppressors (silencers), and certain other concealable firearms known in the law as “any other weapons.” ATF also will not enforce the NFA’s registration, tax-stamp or related requirements for those covered items. The $200 tax remains in place for machine guns and destructive devices. The NFA requirements apply in full to those weapons.  The guidance does not supersede state and local laws that restrict NFA firearms.

I had previously stated that I thought this would create an inconsistency between the federal code and states laws that still required suppressors to be registered as NFA items (because of a lack of schema for registration in light of the court order). I was mistaken. This Q&A exists down below.

Will ATF permit individuals to file registration forms voluntarily?

Yes.  ATF will continue to maintain the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record and approve all NFA forms for those who voluntarily wish to submit them.

So non-free states like the one I live in – NC – will have to get the law amended to take advantage of this court ruling, and that’s not a simple thing in NC where Charlotte, Raleigh and Greensboro tend to rule the roost.

H/T WiscoDave.

BREAKING: I got the HeeHaw Shooting bodycam footage. This is the raw footage, as provided by prosecutors. Does this look justified to you? https://t.co/bVGiDn37Vj

— The Civil Rights Lawyer (@johnbryanesq) October 9, 2026

Although I can’t confirm these are grizzlies and not brownies.

Video Link (I am not on Fakebook).

Source.

@_Gun_Lover Out of battery?

— CaptainsJournal (@BrutusMaximus50) September 27, 2026

BLUF: It’s very, very complicated. Also, as if you needed to be told, man is involved it its spread and probably was involved in its inception.

BREAKING

Solicitor General John Sauer just notified Congress “that @TheJusticeDept [will not] file an appeal” in GOA’s victory against the NFA, Silencer Shop v. ATF.

ATF cannot force GOA members to register suppressors or short barrels EVER AGAIN. This is PERMANENT! https://t.co/46u7EbHSGl

— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) October 1, 2026

Here is the problem. Many states – my own tyrannical state of NC – have laws that require form 4 to own a suppressor. Unless the DOJ makes clear in rule changes that they will not grant form 4s for suppressors, this is incomplete. But that may only be a partial victory. The state law needs to be amended to undo the requirement to seek ATF registration for suppressors.

I’m not sure of the chances of that happening in NC.

So we need something much slower than the sexy jets the AF boys like to fly, huh?

Hey, on a related subject, the final A-10 units inactivate at Davis-Monthan.

Because America is stupid. And I don’t want to hear that we need to shut down the A-10 program because those aircraft are slow and vulnerable to SAMs, and besides that, the AF boys want to fly sexy jets. Sexy jets are vulnerable to SAMs too.

You can’t argue to shut down the A-10 program while at the same time discussing a slower prop aircraft for things like UAVs (like the defense establishment has been). It just doesn’t work with me.

I remain convinced that it should be possible to simply swap out the Fifth Circuit for the SCOTUS. I have long advocated for that.

BREAKING

The Fifth Circuit just struck down the unconstitutional federal ban on purchasing handguns across state lines.

“The Ban sullies the plain text of the 2A & is inconsistent with the nation’s tradition of firearms regulation, dating back to the founding era.” pic.twitter.com/1yLcSokXNT

— Gun Owners of America (@GunOwners) September 18, 2026

The consolidated cases in Viramontes v. Cook County and Grant v. Higgins will deal with whether assault weapons bans, which typically outlaw the purchase of AR-15 and similar semiautomatic rifles, are constitutional under the Second and 14th amendments. The two cases are over laws in Cook County, Illinois, and Connecticut, but are similar to laws in various other states that will be affected by the high court’s eventual ruling. A brief filed to the Supreme Court arguing the laws are unconstitutional warns that broadly banning popular modern firearms, such as AR-15 style guns, would be incompatible with federal law and set Second Amendment rights back hundreds of years.

“Advances in firearms have always been part of the American experience,” said the brief filed by the National Rifle Association, American Suppressor Association, and Independence Institute, noting how modern semiautomatic firearms are the latest iteration of weapons the founders wanted to protect with the Second Amendment.

“To hold that Americans’ most popular firearm is in fact not an ‘Arm’ at all defies reason,” a brief filed by several pro-gun groups, led by Gun Owners of America, said. “AR-15s and other semiautomatic rifles ‘fall squarely’ within the Second Amendment’s basic definition of ‘Arms.’ That is all that is needed for the bans under review to be ‘presumptively unconstitutional.’”

The Trump administration threw its weight behind the bid to strike down “assault weapons” bans, with Solicitor General D. John Sauer arguing that the laws are flatly unconstitutional. The Department of Justice brief asserts that the bans do not comport with the country’s history and tradition of firearm regulation and violate the Supreme Court’s 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen.

“The AR-15 rifle is unquestionably in common use among law-abiding citizens for lawful purposes,” Sauer wrote. “Today, AR-15s are lawful at the federal level and in 40 States. The overwhelming majority of AR-15 owners possess those rifles for the lawful purposes to which they are adapted, such as self-defense in the home, hunting, and target shooting. A ban on possessing such rifles thus violates the Second Amendment.”

There it is again, that phrase: “In Common Use.” I don’t care if there’s only a single AR-15 extant in the world. The 2A forbids the banning of it.

And leave it to the FedGov to use that argument rather than the militia argument we’ve discussed before. Finally, the article doesn’t even bring up that issue – I don’t think Jack Birle did a very good job with this article.

Lol. The Roman Catholic Church weighs in asking the court to inveigh against these weapons. As if I have some reason to care what the RCC says about anything. However, a lot of the justices are catholic so there’s that. Hopefully they’ll see through this. The RCC has also weighed in on AI. That’s like asking me what I think about colorectal surgery. Can’t they just shut up?

"…we trusted the Attorney General’s litigation statement 'disavow[ing] prosecuting [NSSF] or its members just for participating in "lawful commerce," which is all [NSSF] has said it wants to do'." pic.twitter.com/ruLMWwxOix

— Firearms Policy Coalition (@gunpolicy) September 8, 2026

Source.

“This is a tremendous legal hurdle that has been cleared to permit our challenge to be heard in court. This law clearly violates the bipartisan Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act and is unconstitutional in many respects,” NSSF Senior Vice President & General Counsel Lawrence G. Keane said in a Tuesday release. “The challenge to this law has been tortured and the previous frustrations to demonstrate that this state law attempts to circumvent federal law can now move forward. We are confident that New Jersey’s naked attempt to undermine the will of Congress and bankrupt firearm manufacturers and sellers through frivolous lawsuits will not stand legal review.”

“This procedural ruling does not address the merits of NSSF’s challenge to our state’s gun industry accountability law, a spokesperson for Democratic Attorney General Jennifer Davenport told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “Our Statewide Affirmative Firearms Enforcement (SAFE) office will continue its important work to protect our state from gun violence, and we look forward to continuing to defend against this lawsuit in court.

As I’ve said before, this is easy if firearms manufacturers have the balls and scruples to do it. Refuse to sell firearms to any New Jersey law enforcement agency.

This just lets the lawsuit proceed. It doesn’t address the merits of the case. The case has merits and New Jersey is out on a limb. But the issue is far easier to solve if firearms manufacturers are willing to strip guns from New Jersey LEOs.