Obama’s political agenda backfires, gun sales in 2013 smash all records

An armed citizenry is vital for liberty to flourish. Credit: oldrebel via Flickr

By Emily Miller -  The Washington Times – Monday, January 6, 2014

One year ago this month, President Obama announced that radical gun  control was the top of his agenda for his second term.

Although he failed to get any of the gun bans or government  registrations passed on the federal level, he was successful in one area. His  actions convinced millions of Americans to buy more firearms than any time in  history.

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The FBI reported that it performed an astounding 21,093,273 background checks  for the year ending Dec. 31. In fact, eight of the top 10 highest weeks ever for  National Instant Background Check System (NICS) checks were in 2013 (the  other two were during Dec. 2012.)

The checks in 2013 were 8 percent higher than 2012. The one-year  increase is significant because the year leading up to the presidential election  also saw massive which firearm sales.

Mr. Obama has actually been the best gun salesman in history. NICS checks  have gone up a whopping 66 percent since he came to the White House.

“Last year was a record setting year for gun and ammunition sales due to the  threat of anti-gun legislation at both the state and federal level,” said  Lawrence Keane, general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation  (NSSF), which represents the industry’s manufacturers.

NSSF also released its own data on Monday which subtracts out the National  Instant Background Check System (NICS) checks done for carry permits, which  makes it a closer correlation to actual purchases. The NSSF adjusted NICS shows  a 2013 year-end figure of 14,796,872.

The background checks reports are mirrored by financial information released  by firearms companies.

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Smith & Wesson had net sales of $625 million in the fiscal year quarters  that ended on Oct. 31, 2013. That is an impressive 25 percent increase over that  same period in 2012.

Sturm, Ruger & Company reported net sales of $506 million for the first  three quarters of 2013, which was a 45 percent increase over the corresponding  period the previous year.

Freedom Group, which owns companies including Remington, DPMS and Bushmaster,  reported that the first three quarters of 2013 had net sales of $1 billion, up  47 percent from the $677 in revenue for the same period in 2012.

The gun grabbers will claim that gun sales were based on the “corporate gun  lobby” fear mongering and pandering to old gun owners who then stockpiled.

However, retailers report that one-quarter of gun sales were to first-time  buyers who don’t fit that stereotype.

Mr. Keane said that the reason for the bully sales recently are as much  political as a change in the industry.

“Demand is settling back down from the peaks of 2013, but the valley floor is  much higher than before because of the significant number of new firearms owners — many of them young, urban and female — who elected to exercise their Second  Amendment rights for the first time,” he told me Monday.