Welcome to the Sportsman’s Alliance Foundation’s Shooting Range Economic Impacts Calculator. This tool is designed to estimate the economic contributions of existing and/or proposed shooting ranges to your state’s economy. You can increase the size of the tool’s display by sliding the zoom bar along lower right corner of the tool window.

To use:

1. Select the state where the shooting range is located.
2. Enter the estimated total number of visits per year per firearm type (a visit is one user on one day). When you hover over the box under firearm type, a cursor will appear to allow you to change the number of visits from the default value of 0.
3. Select additional services offered by clicking on the boxes in the middle panel.

The economic effects on the right will indicate the estimated total contributions to the state’s economy. Definitions and sources can be found below the calculator.

Definitions

• Total Spending: all spending by shooters related to visiting the shooting range. It includes direct spending at the range itself along with items purchased during the trip to and from the range, such as gasoline for vehicles and food.
• Jobs Supported: jobs supported both directly and indirectly by the above spending. Besides employees of the range itself, this includes employees of businesses that are supported by the range and its employees.
• Salaries and Wages: salaries, wages, and proprietor’s income related to the jobs described above.
• State & Local Taxes and Federal Taxes: taxes collected from spending and economic activity generated by that spending (sales tases, property taxes, income taxes, excise taxes, etc.)
• Contribution to GDP: the new value added to the economy without any double counting. For economists, this measure tells us the net contribution to the state economy and is a preferred measure of an activity’s contribution to economic growth and prosperity.
• Total Multiplier Effect: the full value of all economic activity generated by the shooting range as the original spending moves through the supply chain and through households.

Sources

The calculator was produced by Southwick Associates using average spending amounts from a nationwide study conducted in 2023 (Target Shooting in America). Daily spending amounts are based on national estimates. The economic multipliers are from state input-output models from IMPLAN.