That sucks.

I hope the million ton pendulum starts to swing back soon or we're just not going to survive.

The information from the ATFE includes all holders of FFLs, not all of which have actual retail stores. The other misleqding part is that mast museums cabbot pay for themselves, they need outside money. In many rural areas, there are not enough people to keeo a museum open or enough demand for a library, which are government funded. There is a demand however for guns in rural areas for both hunting, and self-protection. There are rural areas where law enforcement is an hour or more away.

Most guns don't pay for themselves.

I live in the Northeast Kingdom which is the most rural part of the state and libraries and quirky museums abound.

Montana has enough room to fit 15 Vermonts into its square miles. That would be almost 9.5 million people. Montana has only a little more than a million.

Comparing gun stores to museums is not a valid comprison. Comparing retail operations (and many of the FFLs are not actual stores) to libraries and museums is not real.

more than in most of Montana but rural by any definition.

over books.

Most of the state is rural, and most of the state has far more museums and libraries. Even really inaccessible, very poor counties where every third telephone pole has a sign advertising the local NRA dinner or Tea Party meeting. Hell, Alpine County's population is a rounding error and it's got one town. It still has several times more museums and libraries than FFLs, and it's definitely not a renowned center of culture and education.

simply having a Class 01 FFL, the kind required by retail gun stores, does NOT mean they are selling firearms to the general public, if they are selling them at all.

Any gunsmith, firearms refinishing company or any other company that takes in a person's firearm to be worked on for more then one day requires a Class 01 FFL.

n/t

I think he should have normalized the data by population rather than just using raw counts. Would be interesting to see if that would make any difference.