The American automakers have been subsidized too. Military contracts to keep them afloat were the order of the day in the late 1970s - mid-1980s. Anyone with military experience from that era remembers the Dodge pickup trucks in military use.....the trucks with the tops of the fenders rotted away from rust. Former MPs will also remember Chrysler K-car police cruisers - the patrol cars that couldn't get out of their own way. GM also got federal charity with the infamous "CUTVEEs", the Chevy Broncos with the camoflauge paint job and the burgundy vinyl interiors. They were supposed to be tactical vehicles for support units, but unfortunately they had a reputation for getting stuck, even on wet grass. Their breakdown rate was terrible, since they were engineered for occasional offroad use by civilians, not constant crosscountry use. The GSA has always been a dumping ground for cars that the automakers couldn't sell to the public. Throughout the 1990s the GSA lots were full of big Ford Econoline vans, Plymouth Breezes and Chevy Corsicas that nobody wanted.

Let's be honest. The Big Three automakers are in trouble today for two reasons; extravagant benefits for both union employees and upper management and the failure to maintain a technological edge on the foreign competition. The average cost of employing a union worker at GM is $73 per hour when all the benefits and pension package are considered. On the other hand Toyota of America has a hourly employee cost of $47. American industry as a whole has a hourly overhead cost per employee of $26, IIRC. As far as technology, quality control, and sensing market trends go, Detroit has been down this road before in the mid/late 1970s. I worked in the automobile business back then and I remember the reaction by Detroit, or more properly, the inaction to the oil embargo of 1973 - 74. The "lead sleds" continued to be produced up to 1977. The smaller cars introduced by Detroit in the 1970s were trash; the Vega, the Pinto, Chevy Citation, Cadillac Cimmaron,the AMC Gremlin and Chrysler Corp Aspens and Volares all come to mind. Because of the labor turbulence in the industry in the late 1970s, quality control suffered. Due to poor employee morale after the auto strike of 1978-79, GM had serious problems with indifferent quality control for years. The US automakers started to get it right in the 1980s, but they got fat and complacent in the 1990s/early 21st century.

The American firearms and ammunition industry will not get any special treatment...at least not the kind of "special treatment" they would want. I fully expect more marketing restrictions, increased product liability (by the way of frivolous lawsuits), and exponential increases in federal taxes on firearms and ammo. The argument will be made that guns and ammo are "health hazards" and the industry will be taxed to help fund nationalized health care. Perhaps government lawyers will go after the gun industry as it went after "Big Tobacco".