I live in a little town of 1200. I work in a college town of 30k 14 miles away. Across the border in Idaho from that town 8 miles away is another college town of 24k. This is a very rural area with lots of farmers and timber workers in multiple smaller towns within a 50-mile radius.
I grew up in the Idaho town. When I was a kid, my dad owned a gun shop. There was one other gun shop in that town along with two full-size sporting goods stores, a fishing shop, and a couple of gunsmiths in the phone book. Back then the population was around 12k. Across the border in the WA town, they had one gun shop and one Ace Hardware that sold guns.
Now, thirty years later, There is a Walmart in both towns, no gun shops, one sporting goods store, and the Ace Hardware has about 8 guns at about 20% above normal retail.
Ironically, Since passing legal pot in WA, the one town now has four pot shops in town and just OK'd the building of a 5th one right across the Idaho border.
It's a crazy world we live in... You'd think with firearms and ammunition sales through the roof, there would be at least one gun shop to service the 120k people living in a rural area with lots of hunting.