The Obama Effect

Gun Sales Boom—Fact or Hype?

By Richard Martin, 11-25-08

	Get 'em while you can

Since the election of Barack Obama, and the Democratic near-sweep of Congress, two weeks ago there have beenhundreds of news stories about an up surge of gun sales across the West and across the country. Many of these have appeared in newspapers in the Rocky Mountain West: the Denver Post, Boulder’s Daily Camera, the Salt Lake Tribune, and so on.

All of the officials, gun sellers and purchasers interviewed agree on the cause of this brisk market for firearms: the threat of radical new gun-control legislation issuing from the Democratic-controlled Congress and signed by the new president.

“They want to do it now before they can’t do it later,” Chris Lewis, a gunsmith and clerk at Grandpa’s Pawn and Gun in Longmont, told the Daily Camera.

The problem is, while these accounts seem to present persuasive evidence, they’re almost all based on anecdotal evidence. Nearly all the stories cite one stat: “Last month, there were 62,000 more background checks of gun purchases than in October 2007, according to the FBI.” That’s about 9% over last year.

However, as the Los Angeles Times reports, “the number of pre-purchase background checks conducted by the FBI—a major barometer of national gun sales—actually rose more slowly through Oct. 31 of this year than during comparable periods in 2007 and 2006.” What’s more, gun sales have been rising throughout 2008, according to most estimates – long before Obama even won the Democratic nomination, much less became the favorite to win the presidency.

“Considered inside the context of a decade’s worth of background check data and a growing population,” wrote Slate’s Jack Shafer last week, “the 9 percent year-to-date increase doesn’t seem very significant.”

In fact, as Doug Pennington of the Brady Campaign observes, there is no authoritative source for gun-sales figures.

Fiercely lobbying to keep gun laws from making headway in state legislatures and the U.S. Congress, the National Rifle Association has little incentive to tally the huge number of guns in private hands in this country. The National Sports Shooting Foundation, the trade association for gun manufacturers, does keep such figures – but it won’t release them.

To be sure, in the month of October alone, a pre-election buying spree did likely take place. FBI background checks registered “a nearly 49 percent increase over the same period in 2007,” according to CNN.com. It’s worth noting, though, that gun sales almost always rise at the beginning of economic hard times – “No looters or thieves around here, by God!” And, for what it’s worth, not every background check equates to a sold gun. Overall, hard evidence of a gun-buying binge is tough to come by – and so is data to the contrary. Reports of a surge in gun sales, says Pennington, are “based on impressions and suspicions” – as well as interviews with individual gun-shop owners and their customers, who have pretty obvious biases in this matter.

Obama himself, of course, has repeatedly said that while he favors “common-sense” gun laws – like restricting or eliminating the sale of assault weapons at gun shows – he will not attempt to get legislation passed to severely curtail Second Amendment rights.

Nevertheless, stories about record gun sales feed the latent anti-gun-control paranoia never far from the surface in communities across the Mountain West. What’s more, they’re self-reinforcing and easy to produce: go down to the gun shop, get a good quote from the merchant, interview a pistol-laden shopper, and bingo! There may be a new tide of gun owners stocking up on weaponry. Or there may not. But the press is not doing anyone favors by feeding the hysteria.

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