Guns are coming back in vogue. While sales have dipped a bit across the board, a new report shows that many minorities are beginning to exercise their right to keep and bear arms in Trump’s America.
It also reveals an interesting and emerging inverse relationship between gun ownership and American politics. It seems that members of the electorate are more likely to pack heat when they disagree with the party in power. The last eight years of Obama and the first two months of Trump bear this thesis out.
Ironically under Obama, gun sales boomed. Each time the Chicago Democrat talked tough about gun control, sales would spike. In the last year of his presidency, for example, the FBI processed 27.5 million background checks for firearms. That’s a 20 percent bump over 2015 and a 100 percent increase since Obama’s first year in office. The marketing team at Smith and Wesson couldn’t have designed a better sales campaign.
Without Obama, though, the industry has lost free advertising and a powerful market force: urgency. Today bitter clingers in the heartland feel at ease shopping around. After all, why shell out big bucks for an AR-15, if you can wait around for that high powered assault rifle to go on sale?
While Trump has promised not to meddle with the Second Amendment, the Washington Post reports that the industry is feeling the squeeze. Top brass at Ruger, the largest American firearm manufacturer, are already warning their vendors to prepare “for a more challenging sell-through environment.” Long story short, so long as Trump lives in D.C., it’ll be a buyer’s market in gun shops across America.
And for those who disagree with the Republican, that’s good news. They’re gearing up and packing heat. Many of the demographics that reliably pulled the lever for Democrats are becoming gun owners for the first time.
The president of the National African American Gun Association explained the phenomenon to the Post, noting that since Obama left office, “it’s like being racist is cool now.” His group has added more than 7,000 members since Trump took the oath of office, an average of 155 per day.
The founder of Pink Pistols, an LGBT shooting organization whose tagline is “pick on someone your own caliber,” reports a similar story. While some members of her community welcome Trump’s pro-Second Amendment stance, Gwendolyn Patton says gays and lesbians feel compelled to take additional precautions.
“Suddenly they’re buying guns,” Patton told the Post. “The rhetoric has flipped.”
Right now it’s not clear if the uptick in sales will remain steady. But early indicators suggest that some on the left are suddenly warming to the idea of keeping guns for self-defense. Out of power politically, they’re taking their safety into their own hands. And for those who share the opinion that more individual freedom creates better, safer, and stronger society, this is a good thing.
Philip Wegmann is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
