Gun Sales Drop More Than Six Percent In 2018

By Tom Knighton

The firearm industry may well be viewing the Trump administration as a mixed bag right about now. On the one hand, there’s less likelihood of gun control being passed by Congress and signed by the president than there was during the Obama era, which means there’s less chance of having their product lines declared illegal overnight. That’s good.

On the other hand, the lack of that threat has made it so that buyers are less pressured to buy a gun right now than they were just a few years ago. As a result, sales have dropped. And the drop was still more last year.

U.S. firearms sales fell 6.1 percent in 2018, according to industry data reported on Tuesday, marking the second straight year of declines and extending the “Trump slump” following the November 2016 election of pro-gun rights President Donald Trump.

The National Shooting Sports Foundation estimated 2018 sales at 13.1 million firearms, down from 14 million the previous year and down 16.5 percent from record 2016 sales of 15.7 million.

A previous boom that saw gun sales double over a decade through 2016 corresponded largely with Democratic President Barack Obama’s time in office, when fears that gun control laws …Read the Rest

Source:: Bearing Arms