We're only 20k strong here on the GTA. That's just a drop in the bucket of "bb" gun owners around the world. We are the addicted elite. The rest of the X million went to Walmart and bought one for a gift, an impulse or pest control. Not many PCPs on the shelf of the local department stores. Our local gun shop only has a couple Stoegers on the rack and that's because they deal in Benelli PB guns. They won't sell you a scope for an air gun even if you explain that it's the double recoil on some springers that kill scopes. All they know is someone somewhere said air guns are bad on scopes. So, X million minus 20,000 have access to a cheap pumper or a sub $150 springer that should have failed quality control before it even left the factory. Combine that with no knowledge of hold sensitivity, pellet choice and all the other things that we learned about springes from each other and you get "springers are junk"
Did you know that for many years, and perhaps still today, trap shooters and skeet shooters did not appreciate each others form of the sport, which is actually just clay target shooting.