Gun enthusiasts embrace Trump
For those perusing the booths at the Jaffa Sports Show, a warm, spring-like week marked the start of a new outdoor season.
But for one group of vendors — those with racks of rifles and crates of ammunition on display — a far greater seasonal change appears to be underway.
Some of those selling guns and ammunition have noticed a rapid shift since Donald Trump took up the presidency: Gun enthusiasts no longer fear new gun laws, reducing the pressure to buy firearms and ammo en masse. Once-high prices are dropping for some, even as groups like the National Rifle Association stoke new concerns.
“The gun industry capitalizes on elections and tragedies. … People get scared, they want to arm themselves,” said Mike Harris, among the owners of Allegheny Trade Co. in Duncansville. “Right now everybody’s mindset is, ‘We’re good to go.'”
Standing alongside a gun display that included an AK-47-style rifle, Harris said his business has continued to see solid sales since Trump’s election. But the sense of urgency that accompanied the election — particularly when it appeared a Clinton win was inevitable — has dissipated, he said.
The change demonstrates how clearly the political landscape affects the outdoor industry, particularly when it comes to guns and ammunition. Eight years of President Barack Obama’s administration spurred fears among conservative-minded gun owners, even though Obama never passed the sweeping gun changes groups like the NRA warned about.
With Trump in office and Republicans in control of Congress, gun-control advocates’ hopes for change are as distant as ever. That has left gun buyers less interested in bulk purchases and more willing to hold out, said Rick Schuh of Boyz Hydrographic Imaging Design, a Duncansville business that sells guns and colored coating for cars and weapons.
“The scare is over. It really has changed it all for us,” Schuh said. He said industry outlets and sources have pointed to massive drops in sales figures, although not all those interviewed Saturday at the Jaffa Shrine reported a large decline.
Instead, Schuh said, buyers save up for a single gun or for high-end modifications. Gone are the buyers who, spurred on by apocalyptic warnings of imminent government crackdowns, stockpiled guns and ammunition amid rising prices.
Surrounded by boxes of incendiary “dragon’s-breath” shotgun shells and military-style ammo boxes, Caroline Carson of CNC Survival Supply said the past eight years spurred ammunition price hikes that could now end with equivalent drops.
“The market itself is saturated. Before the election, a lot of people bought a lot of products,” said Carson, whose father, John Carson, owns the business (and controls “The Carson Brigade Zombie Defense Specialists” to boot).
Nevertheless, she said she’s confident the industry will do well as the Trump administration continues.
Even with an anti-gun-control president and Congress, groups like the NRA have raised new fears for gun owners. In a speech Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, NRA chief Wayne LaPierre painted a dark picture of an administration threatened by terrorists and rioters.
But for individual gun owners — or at least those who follow political developments — the change has been clear.
“You just never know the thing that’s going to be a catalyst” for higher sales, said William Moran of Altoona as he looked over a rack of guns offered by North Country Guns and Ammo. “The whole ‘panic buy’ sort of thing … that just kind of evaporated.”
Mirror Staff Writer Ryan Brown is at 946-7457.
COMMENTS