“Obama Was The Best Thing That Ever Happened To Gun Sales”
The the most ironic of results, anti-gun President Obama drives gun sales to an all-time high with 19 months of straight increases in background checks, accelerating as the prospect of another President Clinton approached.
People Have Stopped Buying Guns Since Trump Took Office
Now, gun supporting President Trump vows to support the Second Amendment and gun sales have been dropping ever since he stepped into the Oval Office.
It makes sense as freedom loving Americans feared the restricted ability to purchase firearms and the increased possibility of there being a good reason to need one.
According to the New York Post:
In the five full months since Donald Trump was elected president, the FBI has undertaken 1.6 million fewer firearm background checks compared with the same period a year earlier, government statistics show, reflecting slower sales.
While the FBI checks don’t exactly track firearm sales, they are a good barometer of the direction of the market, according to analysts.
The drop-off, which represents a more than 12 percent slide in checks from December to the end of April, is the second-biggest drop ever since the FBI started collecting statistics on it in late 1998.
The cooling is a stark turnaround from the pace in the runup to Election Day, when FBI background checks rose for 19 straight months — and when gunmakers reported robust sales increases.
In each month from December through April, background checks have fallen — albeit in moderating terms. From December through February, background checks fell 16.4, 19.7 and 14.5 percent, respectively. In March and April, the declines were down to 3.6 and 4.7 percent, respectively.
The decline in background checks and sales since Nov. 8 has hurt gunmakers and gun retailers — with their stocks down sharply. Shares of American Outdoor, maker of Smith & Wesson brand guns, are down 18 percent since Election Day. Vista Outdoor, maker of Savage brand guns and ammunition under several brands, has seen its shares fall 43 percent since Nov. 8. Shares of a third gunmaker, Sturm Ruger, are down 1.3 percent over that span.
Over the same period, the S&P 500 is up 12 percent.
Complicating matters is the fact that many retailers bet wrong on who would win the White House — loading up on inventory thinking Hillary Clinton would win and gun enthusiasts, sensitive to possible stricter gun control laws, would buy more arms.
James Debney, chief executive of American Outdoor, told Wall Street analysts on a March 2 conference call that the company was dealing with “an inventory overhang” because “a number of retailers did make some bets on a different outcome in the presidential election.” “They called that wrong,” Debney said.”