Will we have two gun salesman of the century?
Obama was first. But if you read the press you’d think liberals were arming themselves in droves because of Trump. Which they may be. Good for them. But I’ve seen this story now about four different times.
March 7th, 2017 at 7:16 pm
Meh. From observation/experience, far too many of the leftists buying guns are still ascribing to the, “for me but not thee,” mentality with respects to both firearms and liberty in general. It could be that the gateway drug of guns takes longer one some people than others, but…
March 8th, 2017 at 10:47 am
If liberals are arming themselves in a manner similar to that in 2009, the gun store shelves are not demonstrating it here in Austin, the liberal heart of Texas. I can buy .22LR and 9mm at Walmart, Academy Sports and Gander Mountain, and all the EBRs I want (if I could afford them). I think this story is a projection of liberal journalist minds, not reality.
March 8th, 2017 at 12:12 pm
“Liberals” who may arm themselves for a Trump presidency would immediately disarm for another phony liberal authoritarian like Obama or Clinton. But then they’re the “useful idiots” of whom Lenin spoke which is evident because Trump supports their right to arm themselves, whereas the authoritarians they support do not that most basic of human rights!
March 8th, 2017 at 3:04 pm
I don’t think so, no.
My most recent stint in the gun biz ended last year even before it looked like anybody but the beast had a chance at the potus chair, but after a solid eight years of the best salesmanship since the AWB doubled demand and prices for common hardware.
I’ve held an FFL in three long stints for 40 years, but this time I had bought a pawn/gun shop from an old customer/friend who had me help him establish it when he retired from the sheriff’s office after 25 years (and who had been coming into my former place since the year he started there in ’86, talk about feeling old). Anyway, because of me he always wanted to be in that biz so we set it up and he did a very heavy gun volume including a lot of leo business as you would expect. Five years later when he was offered the chance to go back to the SO as head of CSI for which he had tons of training and experience and which he dearly missed, he asked me to take over the shop which since I had semi-retired (again) after my son moved his estate jewelry business to Palm Beach, I agreed to do long enough to find another retired leo to take his place. The guy I had in mind was the former armorer for the department and very knowledgeable and interested in the gun business and even had the cash to invest from his retirement…but he had the business sense of a chimp along with the type of personality that I could tell would not easily be able to take the confinement of five days a week behind the counter, so I basically talked him out of it rather than feel responsible for him failing after a year or so.
That period in late ’15/ early ’16 also was when I “felt” the gun market fading a bit, due to market saturation, with so many guns having been sold in the last eight years and the manufacturers and retailers catching up supply and discounting, that was the sign to me of a coming shakeout. Add to that the ouster of the grabbers at the fed level and their imminent and continuing decline at state and local levels, and I knew the time was right to conduct a 3-month long liquidation (a year’s sales volume in 90 days) and re-retired for the third time. The right choice for me.
But. We absolutely are seeing an echo of the boom since Trump’s victory. And the leftist media can try their spin tactics and say it’s all those heretofore peaceful and law-abiding innocent progs fearing the need to protect themselves from all the deplorable bubba’s, racists, and right-wing extremists. And from that one could extrapolate that Trump is the new Gun Salesman in Chief.
What is hilarious and ironic is that it is almost certainly the exact opposite…that the marches and violence and threats being financed by Soros and Bloomie, blatantly encouraged by the real (reverse) racists in congress, and publicized and lied about by media and celebrities…is what is really causing the boomlet. Those who now see that outright insurrection and even civil war is possible, and beyond the philosophical need to support 2A and other constitutional protections, think they might actually need to protect hearth and home from the radical leftists who are now showing their violent true colors, fomenting protest among illegal immigrants and rousing all the rabble they can.
So, in my typical long-winded fashion, that is my take on Gun-Boom V.2…not a new Salesman of the Century, just a dark, threatening shadow of the same one. Good for the gun biz, and hey, any time that the national private arsenal is increased and enhanced it’s a good thing. But it’s temporary, the shake-out continues as over-capacity in manufacturing (and especially those of questionable quality and stability), along with gun sellers (and especially those who jumped in as profit opportunists only) will continue to fold and jump back out. Supply/demand is the very basis of all capitalism, survival of the fittest ensures strength going forward…and all bubbles must eventually burst.
That’s a good thing.
March 9th, 2017 at 1:59 pm
As someone who frequents gun shops and gun shows in the libtard state of CA, I am finding that liberals buying guns in droves is simply not the case. I see guys that look like me buying another gun to add to their already extensive collection. BTW I would never be mistaken for a liberal, maybe a stereotype but true.