Potential buyers try out guns which are displayed on an exhibitor’s table during the Nation’s Gun Show in Virginia.
San Francisco: Christmas came early for US gun shop owners - who saw a rush of firearms purchases ahead of the presidential election - but they may now be hard-pressed to match last year’s record holiday sales.
Gun merchants had a record October, federal background check data shows, as gun enthusiasts snapped up pistols and rifles on fears that Democrat Hillary Clinton would win the White House and seek to restrict ownership.
Traffic has fallen off substantially since Donald Trump, a gun rights supporter, won the presidency. Shares of Smith & Wesson Holding Corp are down 15 percent since then, despite a rebound this week, while Sturm Ruger & Company’s stock is 17 percent lower.
Like most other retailers, gun sellers thrive during the holidays. Last year’s Black Friday featured record activity for a single day, according background check data.
December 2015 was the second busiest month ever, topped only by December 2012, when President Barack Obama threatened to rein in gun rights after a deranged man killed 26 people, including 20 children, in a shooting rampage at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
Obama, a Democrat, never enacted any sweeping new gun restrictions because he faced opposition in a Republican-controlled Congress.
Now, with this year’s Black Friday just days away, gun dealers say traffic is regaining momentum after the post-election drop.
“I’m not expecting it to be any slower than our normal Black Friday,” said Kellie Weeks, owner of Georgia Gun Store in Gainesville, Georgia. “But if Hillary had won, we would have sold out already.”
After Obama was elected in 2008, November background checks jumped 48 percent compared to the prior November, according to background check data from the National Shooting Sports Foundation. By comparison, checks rose a more modest 5 percent in November 2004 after Republican George W Bush was re-elected.
