The 2020 election, unrest in the streets and a crippling pandemic, this
trifecta of events made people worried about the future of America.
And when people are worried in America, they buy guns.
Gun sales in 2020 have surged and the market for gun parts and ammunition
has gone up with it. And aftermarket gun parts can range from a few
dollars to a few thousand dollars, like eotech holographic optics or gun
sights, which can go for more than 700 dollars or magpul pop up gun sights
that can go for around 60 dollars.
Smith and Wesson stocks soared one hundred and thirty five percent for the
year by mid-October 2020, and federal background checks have passed 32
million for the year, an all time high with more than a month and a half
to go in 2020.
When gun sales go up, ammunition can also become harder to find.
What is causing this surge in gun sales that a lot of people on the right
basically worried about either a breakdown of government and anarchy, but
also at the same time worried about heavy handed government.
So you kind of had you kind of had people stocking up on guns for almost
opposite reasons.
10 percent more women own guns now than in 2005, according to the National
Rifle Association and according to the National African American Gun
Association. Fifteen thousand new members have joined the group in twenty
twenty alone. You always have sort of your usual suspects, your middle
age, typical what people consider like the stereotypical gun owner.
But you're also seeing very large increases in percentages that are either
minorities or women.
In fact, I've seen some looks at this that have seen that it's actually
minority women who are the greatest increases in the demographic of new
gun owners. Will the surge in gun sales go down as a Joe Biden
administration takes over in twenty, twenty one?
A huge number of the things that Joe Biden intends to proceed on require
executive action, and that is uniquely within his purview.
Or will sales take off over fears of new gun control laws?
The Second Amendment enshrines the right to own firearms in the United
States through numerous legal battles, legislation and normalization, it
has stood the test of time.
A patchwork of gun laws in the US stem from each state, having different
restrictions on certain types of guns and accessories.
In some states like Florida, you can have giant magazines and even
automatic weapons if you apply and pay for a federal tax stamp in other
states like California. There are tough restrictions on buying guns in
Florida. If you feel in threat for your life, you can either.
Sometimes, depending on the background check, you might have to wait three
days. But typically you can walk out of the store with that firearm that
day after having passed a background check.
In California, you have to go in.
You have to pass the background check.
You have to purchase that weapon, and then you have to go home, wait 10
days and then make your way back to that gun store.
10 days later, in the days before the 2020 election, Joe Biden tweeted that
he would support a new assault weapons ban.
Ultimately, what Joe Biden is saying around an assault weapons ban, is,
number one, he helped enact one when he was a US senator with Jim and
Sarah Brady. Brady made that happen.
Number two, it made a difference even at that time.
It made the difference because the use of those kinds of weapons over the
ten years after that ban was enacted went way down.
And let's be clear, these are military grade weapons designed to kill as
many people as efficiently as possible.
Talk to parents who've lost their kids in school shootings and ask them
whether they think an assault weapons ban is worth it.
Number three, it will have more of an effect on prospective gun use along
with gun owners.
Gun manufacturers and sellers are now preparing for a Biden presidency,
which could change how their industry operates.
They're talking about preparing to defend their Second Amendment rights,
and the assault weapons ban.
I mean, that's that's a huge boogeyman for gun rights advocates.
There are some things I anticipate a Biden administration would do fairly
quickly, as he has promised to do fairly quickly, namely looking at some
ATF regulations and understandings of receivers and uppers and lower and
sort of complicated technical aspects of what defines or doesn't define a
firearm. But for the most part, I think what you're looking at in terms of
the broader scope of a Biden administration policy would have to be
something that gets through Congress, whether it's an assault weapons ban
or raising purchasing agent or anything like that, that's going to have to
come through Congress. And then ultimately, given a newly reconstituted
Supreme Court, you're going to see Supreme Court challenges.
I think you have to be realistic about it when we're talking about a
so-called assault weapons ban, because, a, if the Democrats don't win the
Senate, then I think we're just not even going to be talking about that
for four until the next election anyway.
But also, even if they do in the Senate, even if the Democrats are in
control, that's going to be something that's heavily negotiated.
And what you're likely to see is there's going to be all kinds of
loopholes and grandfathering.
And if you grandfather in air 15s that have already been bought, you're
talking about millions of semiautomatic rifles that are going to go away.
The U.S. has one hundred and twenty point five guns per 100 residents,
which is more than any other country in the world, with the next highest
being Yemen, although mass shootings in the U.S.
are common compared to the rest of the world.
There has been little appetite for stricter gun laws on a national level.
The federal assault weapons ban was in place from 1994 to 2004 and expired
during the George W. Bush presidency.
It mostly affected aesthetic parts of weapons.
Banning new weapons also means that older ones are grandfathered in and
legal after new laws are passed.
Some gun buyers purchase heavily when it appears that new laws could
restrict in demand firearms.
FBI background checks, which are used as a way to gauge gun sales, showed
that gun sales were already up by one point seven million in twenty
nineteen from the previous year, possibly due to the Democratic wave in
twenty eighteen that took over the House.
The prices have gone, have gone way up and you see gun prices fluctuate.
I would say more than than, than most industries.
The coronavirus pandemic and unrest over racial injustice in 2020 added
fuel to the fire and soon even those who were previously not lured by gun
culture were buying them just in case things in the U.S.
got worse. Gun sales traditionally go up when Democrats win elections and
they go down when Republicans win because of that, you have these these
kind of crazy surges of demand and then you also have these troughs and
the troughs happened sort of ironically, when more gun friendly
administrations come in.
So when Trump was elected, there was a whole phenomenon called the Trump
slump in the gun industry.
So even though he was arguably the most gun friendly president in
generations, his election actually kind of hurt the gun industry.
And now and now we're seeing that that clearly come back in a big way.
In 2008, FBI background checks, a metric to gauge gun sales, came in around
twelve point seven million for the year, up from eleven point one million
the previous year. And in 2016, they were up by around four point four
million from 2015, possibly in part because the polls predicted a win by
Hillary Clinton when Donald Trump ended up winning.
Background checks dropped by two point three million from the previous
year in twenty seventeen.
These spikes can also affect stock prices for gun and ammunition
producers. For example, Ruger saw an increase in its stock price after the
2012 election, rising from twenty eight dollars and sixty three cents per
share in November 2011 to forty seven point sixty eight cents per share
after the election in 2012, peaking in the fifty dollar range just before
the election. Ruger shares also rose to ninety dollars per share in August
during the height of the unrest in the country and have dropped since then
to the sixty five dollar range after the election, which is still a solid
increase from November 2011.
Sometimes shares in companies that specialize in firearms can dip due to
other events like mass shootings, new state laws or the potential for new
federal regulations.
After a whirlwind 2020 future growth for gun and gun accessories remains
uncertain in early November, Phizer announced its vaccine candidate was 90
percent effective against covid-19.
It was a huge boost for the stock market and for optimism over the ongoing
battle against coronavirus.
The stock prices of Smith and Wesson and Ruger.
Two major gun manufacturers, however, dropped by nine percent on the same
headlines. The peaceful election week also may have been a factor in the
drop in stock price.
As the Bush administration takes over, there could be a spike in gun
sales, fears of new bands and also a crackdown on anti-government armed
groups to drive ammunition shortages, new gun sales and the reseller
market. We have never, ever had a president of the United States and a
vice president of the United States who embrace gun violence prevention
and public health solutions to gun violence in the manner that Joe Biden
and Kamala Harris do.
And we look forward to embracing solutions all of America wants.
And it's not going to involve the confiscation or the removal of a single
gun from any household in America.
I guarantee that.
I think really the biggest pushback you're going to get are from the
millions of new gun owners, many of whom for the first time went through
the process of trying to purchase a gun and ran headlong into those
barriers that have been put in place, especially in places like
California, where you had a lot of first time gun owners who thought,
yeah, I can just walk in today and come out with an AR 15 and are finding
that that's simply not the case there.
What do you mean? I have to wait 10 days?
What do you mean? I have to pass a background check to get ammunition.
Now, when we talk about gun control in America, when we talk about these
things, we have to talk about in the context of a roughly 400 million guns
already in the US and almost certainly not going anywhere because it's
just politically impossible, even even with Democrats controlling all
three branches.