Colt to stop making civilian AR-15s

WEST HARTFORD, Conn. — Gun-maker Colt is suspending its production of rifles for the civilian market, including the popular AR15, the company said Thursday in a shift it attributed to changes in consumer demand and a market already saturated with similar weapons.

The company said it will focus instead on fulfilling contracts with military and police customers for rifles.

“The fact of the matter is that over the last few years, the market for modern sporting rifles has experienced significant excess manufacturing capacity,” Colt’s chief executive officer, Dennis Veilleux, said in a written statement.

“Given this level of manufacturing capacity, we believe there is adequate supply for modern sporting rifles for the foreseeable future.”

Veilleux said the company, which emerged from bankruptcy in 2016, remains committed to the Second Amendment. He said the company is expanding its lines of pistols and revolvers.

Despite a national debate on gun control, Colt’s decision seems driven by business considerations rather than politics, said Adam Winkler, a gun policy expert at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Law.

FBI statistics show more than 2.3 million people applied for background checks to purchase guns in August, up from just over 1.8 million in July.

Those applications, the best available statistic from tracking gun sales, have been rising steadily, with a slight decline after Donald Trump was elected president in 2016.

Gun sales usually go up when buyers feel their access to such weapons is being threatened, Winkler said.

Winkler said the company’s decision risks alienating and angering its remaining customer base.

“We’ve seen in the past that when gun manufacturers are viewed to have given in to gun-safety advocates, gun owners will boycott them and really hurt their business,” he said.

“If they think a company like Colt is disrespecting their identity or giving in to the other side, Colt’s likely going to see serious damage to its other firearms brands, too.”

The debate on gun control has focused in particular on assault-style rifles like AR-15s that have been used in mass shootings.