‘40 million extra’? Why are you stopping at Bush’s first 5 years? You did notice that background checks jumped over 40% over Bush’s last 3 years in office as well, right?
In fact, the data shows flat growth for the first 7 years of the program (1999 through 2005). In 2006 - under Bush Jr - the number of background checks suddenly jumps 12%, the first in a string of double-digit jumps for pretty much all of Bush’s second term. In other words: about the nicest thing I can say about your ‘jump in sales since Obama was elected’ is that it’s intellectually dishonest, because you’re creating an arbitrary start point when the trend *clearly *started in the Bush administration.
There are, however, other things to consider. First - yes, these are background checks. Which may or may not correlate directly to gun sales. One would assume so, of course, but we know what happens when you just assume shit.
For example, one could hypothesize that an increase in dealers using the NICS system would result in an increase in NICS background checks run, with no real change in sales. And lo, some digging shows some states weren’t using the NICS system, they were using their own state background check programs. Some states apparently are partial-POC (use their own system for handguns, NICS for long guns, etc). And guess what - the number of states (and, one assumes, number of federally licensed dealers using the system) *has *changed over time, going from 28 states in 2005 to 37 states in 2011. State-by-state data is available, but it’s in PDF format and I can’t find any downloadable excel file with the data, but it would be interesting to find underlying dealer numbers etc. Other changes may also have had an impact (addition of spanish language option, change in connection format between agencies, etc).
We already destroyed your ‘40 million guns’ quote above, so we’ll ignore that. But anyway, yes, Bush Jr. did indeed leave the US economy in really crap shape. During the worst economic downturn in our lifetimes, would you expect to see a) an increase or decrease in crime, and b) remembering your answer to a), would you thus expect to see a rise or fall in gun sales?
I’m a competition shooter, so I need spares in case one breaks down. Ones to use in practice and ones to keep fresh for big matches, ones with different sights, triggers, and configurations, depending on different match rules, etc.
Aside from competition different guns are used for different purposes. My Krieghoff K80 for example does entirely different things than say my FN FAL. Hunters need different guns for different game, etc.
Because Obama has only been in office for 5 years. I wanted the comparison to be even.
Yeah, I imagine people were anticipating Obama’s coming. And after 2004 the prior ban on guns expired so people maybe figured the should stock up while they could. Still numbers are WAY up since Obama was elected, would you agree?
Now that we have bantered about various gun topics for 60+ posts, can you tell us what debate you intended when you posted your OP in Great Debates? It certainly looked like a GQ question.
No, I’m using language that makes sense to me, and probably a lot of the people who bought guns since 2009, and that use of language is accepted in the English language.
I think I’ve been pretty clear about what guns were going to be banned. It seems you are oddly trying to deny that in a bit of a misleading fashion.
Yeah, the question seems answered. Obama is the best gun salesman ever.
I figured it would be political and moved here anyway and it seems a lot of Dems are in denial about the facts. Plus I thought it might be interesting that gun control efforts seem to have the opposite effects as intended. 40-PLUS million guns is A LOT of guns!
Remember when Bloomberg tried to ban drinks in NYC? How did he expect people to survive with no drinks?
You may argue that he only tried to ban soft drinks over 20 ounces, but that is a drink so he banned drinks.
Remember when pesticides were banned in the 1970s? How are we supposed to keep insects in check with no pesticides?
Now, the FDA is talking about banning food! Hey, partially hydrogenated fats are a kind of food, and they are talking about banning that, so they are banning food. We’re all going to starve!
I saw two questions, one of which I assumed was facetious, the other of which probably has a factual answer, but one that no one including you seems interested in answering.
1. Is Obama really the best gun salesman in America? No. Obama, as far as we know, has never sold a gun. Did you mean to ask something like “Has Obama’s presidency stimulated gun sales?” or “Have Obama’s policies stimulated gun sales?” If that is what you were hoping to debate, it should have been a simple matter to actually type what you wanted to debate.
2. Are these numbers all correct? Confirming or refuting the numbers seems like it would be difficult and tedious. It might lead to a pseudo-debate spurred by dueling numbers. The whole correlation argument is BS. The sales numbers exist. Find them and use them or shut up.
I find the notion that only gun owners can be freedom enthusiasts misleading and somewhat offensive. Where were all the gun owning freedom enthusiasts when the Patriot Act was being pushed through? Americans lost more freedom from that,than what they will lose from any gun legislation. Maybe if you start standing up for the freedoms we have actually lost instead fearing and wasting energy on phantom gun laws, all Americans will be better off.
Sure you did. :rolleyes: If there’s been steady growth in the number of background checks for 10 straight years - which there has, starting very early in Bush’s second term - well, *of course *there are more absolute checks being run *now *vs 10 years ago.
If you were actually trying to have an intellectually honest debate, you’d look at growth *rates - *and there has been almost no change in growth for the first five years under Obama (11% avg annual growth) vs the last five years under Bush (10%). If you want to claim that a 1 percentage point increase in average annual growth is ‘WAY UP’, knock yourself out. The adults in the room will either ignore your, or possibly point and laugh.
(And of course this is all before we get into what looks to be an increase in the number of states (dealers) utilizing the system from the mid 2000’s. But I notice you conveniently ignored all those messy little ‘facts’)
The jump in background checks starts from 2005.
Obama was a junior BLACK senator from Illinois, barely into his second year of his first term, with a name that sounded vaguely like the 9/11 mastermind, and he wouldn’t even start his campaign for the presidency for another year or more. You think a significant proportion of the population suddenly decided that *this *was going to be the next president, so Buy Now Buy Now!? What, do you think everyone suddenly turned into a fucking physic? Back in 2006, what do you think people would have put the odds at that we’d get a black president in our lifetime, let alone in the very next election? No, I highly, highly doubt the increase in background checks that started in 2005 is in anyway related to Obama.
This is possible. The NICS site appears to have some data broken down by guntype, why don’t you look into it?
Why are you insisting on starting from 2009? The increase started in 2005. And there has been almost no change in the rate of growth in background checks that started in Bush’s second term.
Either way - I still don’t quite know what point you’re trying to make - suppose we suddenly had clear-cut data that gun sales went from ‘zero’ in 2008 to a quadragadzillion in 2009 under Obama…what would your point even be? I don’t know why you’d want to claim membership with the logical conclusion one would draw from that…
On the subject of why Ruger specifically might have been chosen, they introduced two wildly popular models of handgun during this time period, the LCP in 2008, and the LC9/LC380 in 2011. That alone is enough to account for their strong sales.
The link between national economic conditions and crime is inconclusive:
As to how to explain a post-2005 increase in gun sales, certainly fear of future efforts to ban them could be one factor. Another might be the increasing popularity of concealed carry. Handguns suitable for concealed carry are rather specialized for the task (very small, lightweight, rounded edges, controls either removed or modified to prevent snagging on the draw, etc). Someone deciding to carry concealed, even if they were already a handgun owner, would generally have to procure such a CC-optimized handgun in order to do so.
A third factor might just be the quality of the products available at the moment. The industry is in something of a golden age for quality, safety, innovation, variety, and support.
It would have been more interesting to compare sales on or around the 1994 AWB and the talk of the 2012 ban that never materialized. A legitimate question of whether or how much potential gun bans motivate increased sales gets muddied by this weirdly framed OP.
I would like to try and understand how you look at it. I’m a person who has never bought or owned a gun and have no desire to do so. I have a few questions to clarify what you said and try to understand it.
When you say a lot of guns, what sort of numbers are we talking about?
Why do you feel you need more than 1 or 2? (and yes, I mean you specifically. I know there are collectors and such)
Variety is fun. The only limits on numbers of guns is how much room is in your safe, how many dollars are in your wallet, and how much your spouse lets you get away with
I suppose it’s a bit semantics but it seems his policies has resulted in the sale of lots of firearms. Though you could credit some of that to Dianne Feinstein, Piers Morgan, Sarah Brady, etc. It does seem pretty clear that anti-gun efforts result in more gun sales.
The numbers seem pretty close to correct though, don’t they?
