If you believe the headlines of late, the gun industry is in a slump in a post-Obama America, because the election of Donald Trump has ended fear of draconian gun regulations that would have stemmed from Hillary Clinton winning the presidency, which many expected. That expectation drove many people to buy guns in 2016.
But this story from the Washington Examiner, and the sales figures it reports from the nation’s biggest gun shop, echo what many in the industry have been saying: that this is just a small valley after a bizarre and unusual series of peaks in recent years.
First off, FBI NICS background-check numbers are in for March and they jumped a bit, clocking in 198,275 more than February, for a total of 2,433,092. While those numbers aren’t a direct correlation to the number of guns sold, it’s a close indicator, and those are pretty healthy numbers.
There have been over 6 million NICS checks performed in 2017 so far, and one notable gun shop has seen strong sales.
Hyatt Guns of Charlotte, North Carolina, which bills itself as “America’s Largest Gun Shop,” is a family-owned business has about 7,000 firearms in stock at any given time. There are nine gunsmiths on its on-site gunsmithing staff, who can do anything from warranty repairs to Cerakoting. They even offer gun estate planning, a service you may not have even known existed.
The story says they saw an increase in business last month, not a downturn.
“Our sales were up over 25 percent in March and they are continuing to trend upward,” said Justin Anderson, the marketing director for Hyatt, in the story.
“We knew sales were holding strong, but the amount of business has truly exceeded our expectations and we are looking forward to (a) record-breaking summer. We can only attribute this again to people who are continuing to make the decision to take responsibility for their own security. In addition, gun ownership is quickly becoming more acceptable in all walks of life. This is an amazing time to be in the gun business,” he said in the story.