What really disgusts me is that we have a poor economy, people want jobs, and the gun companies are the exact illustration of not hiring new people when needed. Instead of oohing and ahhing when Ruger said, "We stopped taking orders..." I began asking, "Then why don't you expand and give some people jobs?"
If you are running for office, perhaps such a question sounds good on the soapbox. But rhetorical questions frequently make sweeping assumptions to excuse the questioner from engaging in detailed thought leading to a supportable answer, hoping instead that people to whom the question is asked will also choose to ignore detailed thought and simply nod in agreement.
The answer to your question requires details. I'll address but a few of them:
(1) In general, hiring workers is a costly proposition, even moreso in Massachusetts than in other states. There are regulations to be fulfilled, paperwork to be completed, and a lot of HR hours required. Those HR hours carry considerable cost.
(2) Since the manufacturing of guns is not basic labor, then S&W must hire semi-skilled or skilled workers. This means that there must be enough people with the correct skills, AND who are looking for work, AND who are in the geographic region where the work occurs. Plus, regardless of the skills a new worker possesses, he/she must be trained to do the job for which they were hired.
(3) An employer hires a worker when the incremental productivity of that worker exceeds the fully loaded cost the employer must pay to secure the worker's services. This fully loaded cost goes well beyond his salary. The employer pays 1/2 of the S.S. tax; employers usually offer benefits like retirement contributions, life insurance policies, and health plans; and even payroll administration carries costs. As the loaded cost of employees has gone up due to health care costs, increasingly stringent regulations, liability risks, and tax increases, the degree to which the worker's incremental productivity exceeds his/her cost shrinks; therefore, employers are less willing to hire. This is a sensible reaction.
(4) In what context will these workers be employed? If S&W hires them to run a new shift, the costs of hiring these workers is considerably higher than just their loaded cost. Running a factory for a third shift when it was running only two requires extra energy and all the services tangential to running a line. Extra maintenance staff must be hired; extra support services are required. Even the IT costs may not be negligible, since S&W doubtless uses an ERP that tracks the movement of parts and product through the production process. The cost of availability, energy, storage, hardware, and software licensing may all go up by adding a third shift.
If S&W is already running three shifts on their manfacturing equipment, then hiring extra workers means adding an extra line. That is *massively* expensive, and such capital expenditure is not taken lightly.
(5) When Alan Mulally took over at Ford, he made signiificant changes to the historical automaker. One of them was to abandon the focus on market share in exchange for a focus on profitability. He said that the key to profitability in manufacturing is to correctly match capacity to demand. For cars or guns, it is better to have too little capacity than too much, because too little capacity ensures full (or fuller) utilization of existing capital, whereas too much capacity wastes capital that could otherwise be used for more profitable pursuits.
You wrote that they aren't hiring people "when needed". I submit that without analysis of the factors above, and far more than these, you cannot possibly know what is "needed". You can know what is wanted, that S&W would love to crank out more guns per unit time to capture the cashflow that could be supported by the market right now. But want and need are vastly different.
This "allocated" and "waiting list" garbage just means they lose money and miss opportunities for their shareholders. Sooner or later the gun companies will learn that.
Learning requires acquisition of knowledge not already in one's possession. I don't see any evidence that S&W is missing knowledge they should possess. Furthermore, saying that they "lose money" strains the bounds of credulity. S&W is not losing money and seems to selling all the guns they manufacture. Regarding lost opportunities, there is no doubt that they could increase the revenue associated with the Shield by delivering more of them per unit time, but if revenue were profit (or return on capital) then everybody would be massively rich.
So, you can be disgusted because these manufacturers won't add jobs, but disgust should be based in a sense of morality, that is, disgust should be incurred when one is aware that somebody knows to do right but fails to do it. The idea that S&W should simply hire workers because demand for one product is high hardly constitutes "right" and I think that disgust is unwarranted.
with their profits, so I have chosen to wait. The LGSs that I am on a list with, will charge a reasonable price. I just have to be patient!
Especially for BuckeyeChuck's "Manufacturing Basics-099" dissertation!! 
