Without Obama, Gun Sales Drop
“President Obama was the best gun salesman the world has ever seen”
Dubbed the “gun salesman-in-chief,” Obama’s frequent gun-grabbing and gun-related regulation threats drove gun sales through the roof throughout his presidency.
Now that he is no longer in office and perceived as a threat to our Second Amendment rights, gun sales have dropped.
President Trump’s election appears to be negatively affecting gun sales in the U.S. and the bubble appears to be bursting despite a staunch advocate for gun rights in the White House and Republicans ruling Congress.
“President Obama was the best gun salesman the world has ever seen,” Karl Sorken, a production manager at Battle Rifle Co. in Houston. Sorken is an Army veteran and self-described liberal who voted for Obama and notes the change for the industry under Trump is a topic of conversation in the shop.
Fears of government limits on guns — some real, some perceived — led to a surge in demand during Obama’s tenure and manufacturers leapt to keep up. Over the decade ending in 2015, the number of U.S. companies licensed to make firearms jumped 362 percent.
The Washington Post reported that the FBI conducted about 500,000 fewer background checks in December 2016 then in 2015. Gun sales this year have reportedly dropped about 17 percent.
From 2004 to 2013, sales of all handguns — pistols and revolvers — increased nearly fivefold, according to industry figures. Sales of rifles tripled in that timeframe.
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
I am 60 years old. Until 20 January 2009, I did not own any firearms. As of 20 January 2017, I own… more than one.
Draw your own conclusions.
It still takes more than four months to get a Larue 7.62 or .260.
Racists.
Every time there was a killing, Obama would exploit the tragedy for all the political benefit he could get. He always blamed the tragedy on guns, like blaming drunk driving on cars. Each time he did this, what people heard was “I’m going to make it impossible to get guns, so if you EVER want one, you’d better get it right now!!”
Every time he did this, gun sales soared. After he had done it five or six times, he must have known that he was driving gun sales through the roof. He’s no dummy. I wonder if he was receiving contributions from the firearms industry. Even after it was obvious that he was encouraging gun sales, he kept doing the same thing. A definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.
Obama wasn’t insane, except maybe crazy like a fox. By promoting gun sales, he kept the firearms industry from opposing him, even while he satisfied his political base by preaching against firearms. To keep the bubble from bursting, the firearms industry needed to elect Hillary. She would keep up the preaching, but the Republicans would keep her from passing restrictive laws. I wonder how much the firearms industry contributed to Hillary under the table. She certainly had much more money than Trump, and much of it was from unknown sources.