Mods: please change the title to “Why are gun sales down?”
There should be a factual answer to this. Let’s try to keep it out of GD territory. If there’s a previous thread on this I can’t seem to find it. According to this CNN article gun sales for most major US gun makers are down, and down significantly.
I don’t get it. With the call for greater gun control, and perhaps even a ban on military-style rifles, you’d think that gun enthusiasts would be out in droves stockpiling as many of these weapons with high capacity clips as possible. Is it because they got all of the guns they could afford during the previous administration? What am I missing?
This is also a reminder to all to keep this as factual as possible, per the OP. This is a hot button topic to many, so let’s try our best to keep all responses appropriate to GQ.
This news is about their reported quarterly net sales. Which would be the 4th quarter of 2017. The increased call for gun control only happened after the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.
The reason gun sales declined in 2017 is because there was less fear of new gun control laws. That’s why Remington is now in Chapter 11. From this article:
That “Thursday” would be the day after the school shooting.
There was also an increase in manufacturing when it looked like Hillary was going to win the election, since she promised tighter gun control laws during her campaign. Retailers stocked up on weapons, expecting a spike in sales after the election. When Trump won, the spike didn’t happen, leaving retailers with excess stock. The retailers have been slow to order new weapons while they work through this excess, leading to a slump in manufacturing that the industry has apparently been calling the “Trump slump”.
There is still a bit of excess inventory at the retail level, which is probably dampening the sales spike that usually results from calls for greater gun control.
Cite for the “Trump slump” in general:
Why Donald Trump Is Bad for Gun Sales
The fact that we have a Republican Congress, which gun enthusiasts tend to think is less likely to pass restrictive gun laws, also probably factors into things quite a bit.
Cites:
Congressional Republicans reject calls for tighter gun restrictions in wake of Florida shooting
What will Congress realistically do on guns after the Florida shooting?
You have to look at short-term ups and downs, and also long-term patterns. In the short term, politics plays a roll in gun sales, as mentioned above. In the long term, gun sales have been on an upward trend for many years, and any recent decline probably indicates that most people already own about as many guns as they want. I believe there are only two publicly traded gun manufacturers in the US, Ruger and Smith & Wesson (now called American Outdoor Brands). Both show significant increases in sales from 2012 through 2016. Women have become a more important market segment (still small compared to men, but growing).
Other than Ruger and S&W, the other companies are either mid-size or small private companies. Like any industry, it looks like the recent growth cannot be sustained, as the market hits a natural saturation and maximum sales level. Companies seem to scale up when things are good and overbuild and take on too much debt, not believing that numbers will eventually return to normal levels.
I’d like to think that it’s because sensible people have finally figured out that sane restrictions and tracking are not synonymous with confiscation. I tend to be unrealistically idealistic, however.
There’s only so many gun owners in the country, and since they all have guns, they are mostly buying another gun, or replacing an old gun with hte fancy new model. That’s not really an expanding market.
After all, 2/3rds of the US population doesn’t own any gun at all. Of the 1/3 that does, about half that is people who own a hunting rifle or shotgun. Some of the remaining are guns used by groups (police, sheriffs, bank guards, etc. that are used in their profession. So it’s really only a small percentage of the population that actually own a handgun. Marketing to this niche can be profitable, but is not a long-term growth market.
Any time there is a perceived threat of gun control, sales spike. Almost always after a shooting, or if a politician threatens gun control, or oddly enough, when Trump discussed taking guns away from people and then justifying it later (most people ignored it, since half of what Trump says is pure bluster).
If you ask any gun dealer, they will always say the best salesman they ever had was Barack Obama.
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I agree. In addition to that, a gun will last a person not only his or her entire life, but the great-grandchildren can still use it effectively. It amazes me that there are enough new gun sales at all to keep the manufacturers in business.
Guns keep getting stolen and “stolen” and winding up in the hands of criminals, so new guns need to be purchased to replace those and to be stolen or “stolen” again.
Yes, it’s a function of perceived likelihood of more gun control, but overlaid on a market with eventual limits on cumulative demand.
IOW at a certain point it requires more and more perception that you have to ‘buy them while you can’ to keep demand the same amount above the normal trend. There would presumably eventually have been a drop off in gun sales from the very elevated Obama era levels even if the perception of the risk of more federal gun control had just remained constant rather than falling, as it’s reasonable to assume it has since the 2016 election, although that could change now at least for some categories of gun. Or if you see a big rebound in sales it will be a sign it’s changed.
Do you think most of the guns being sold are Winchester Model 70s, Remington Model 870s or clones of other guns made 50 years ago ? Manufacturers have brought out lots of innovative, interesting and affordable products in recent years. New designs that are lighter, smaller, more accurate, less expensive or otherwise interesting are brought out every month. That is an important reason for increasing numbers of sales.
The OP as written, like some earlier posters have mentioned, does not take into account that reported statistics will lag behind whatever is the buzz of the moment.
True, this is not like a car, which even if you are a conservative consumer and not concerned about the latest geegaw you will likely replace it anyway past the 10 year point just because of maintenance cost/reliability/safety/fuel economy issues. These are *very *durable goods.
I suppose there is a limited parallel WRT to other purchases in that people may buy “entry level” firearms, in the same way as upon entering the workforce someone may buy a used economy car, wear a $29.95 watch and an outlet-store suit, and live in a small “starter home”, and then later upgrade as they become more solvent and sophisticated. But that alone would not account for that much product moving – one must imagine many of the repeat buyers are enthusiasts who just gotta have the latest and greatest NOW (a-la smartphone addicts) or want to collect every variation on a favorite theme.
And keep in mind the number that get diverted into criminal activity. Gun sales need to stay up, or the guns available to criminals would start to decrease.
Since you mentioned this twice as an apparently significant demand factor, what are the numbers you are referring to? How many guns are stolen and replaced each year?
the number of guns being diverted to criminal use is double that of what is actually stolen.
Straw purchases are what I refer to as “stolen”, as if the weapon is used in a crime, and the buyer is tracked down and asked what happened, they will claim it was stolen.