Passing Up a Buyer’s Market
Kevin Felts 05.15.17
Gun sales have been on the decline since December 2016. Having watched election time roller coaster gun sales since the 1990s, this is no big surprise. Every time a Democrat is elected president there is a surge in sales.
Back in 2008 I was visiting a local gun store. I had bought a couple of rifles from them and was looking to make another purchase. Something else I was interested in is how the store was going to respond to the election of November 2008. The store had a couple of WASR-10 AK-47s in stock. Going price was around $375 for a standard wooden stock and something like $395 for a paratrooper model with a folding stock.
I made it a point to visit the store the Saturday after the election. The store marked all of their military style semi-automatic rifles up $1,000. The WASR-10 went from $375 to $1,375. I asked the woman what happened to the price: “Last week that rifle was $375?” She replied, “We are not able to get them anymore.” I knew her reply was a lie based on fearmongering.
I left the store and have never bought anything from them again.
From the New York Post – People have stopped buying guns since Trump took office.
In the five full months since Donald Trump was elected president, the FBI has undertaken 1.6 million fewer firearm background checks compared with the same period a year earlier, government statistics show, reflecting slower sales.
While the FBI checks don’t exactly track firearm sales, they are a good barometer of the direction of the market, according to analysts.
The drop-off, which represents a more than 12 percent slide in checks from December to the end of April, is the second-biggest drop ever since the FBI started collecting statistics on it in late 1998.
1.6 million fewer background checks as compared to a year ago, why?
I fully understand people panic-buying before the election. Hillary Clinton and her stance for stronger gun control drove sales through the roof. President Obama was perhaps the greatest sales person of small arms the world has ever seen.
Buyers Market
However, we have a buyer’s market that has never been seen before, and gun owners are passing it up.
At the writing of this article I am 49 years old. I bought my first AR-15 and AK-47 in the early 1990s. I have never seen so many firearms on the market, with so many accessories and at such great prices as there are right now.
The only time I can compare this to is when the USSR collapsed and the market was flooded with cheap Russian rifles and ammunition. I remember around 1987 or so, the Russian AK-47 was selling for $75. In the early 1990s, you could walk into a gun show with $200 and walk out with an SKS and a case of Russian 7.62×39 hollow point ammunition packed in a wooden box. The 1980s and 1990s were a buyer’s market, and a lot of people passed it up.
I deeply regret not buying several Russian rifles and cases of ammunition when they were cheap.
Why are gun owners passing up today’s buyer’s market?
Gun owners may have a friend in President Trump, but one day his presidency will be over. Who knows what the future holds? Are we going to sit on our hands for the next four or eight years, then go back to panic-buying?
Drive those gun sales back up. Having a pro-gun president and congress strikes fear into the anti-gun establishment. Strike while the iron is hot.
