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Archive for September, 2020

Bloomberg Betting $100 Million on Joe Biden In Florida

Posted in gun rights, Politics, tagged , , on September 14, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Fifty days out from Election Day, Former New York Mayor and anti-rights activist Michael Bloomberg is dropping $100 million in Florida, that’s right – $100 million in one state, to help Joe Biden win the state. Bearingarms.com editor Cam Edwards has to story today on Bearingarms.com’s Cam and Company.

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Free Beacon: Riots Likely Drove 2020 Gun Sales Spike

Posted in gun rights, Politics, tagged , , , on September 9, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Steven Gutowski and colleague Charles Fain Lehman have this story at the Washington Free Beacon about those massive gun sales over this summer.

While March saw the most guns sold thus far in 2020, seasonally adjusted data show that it was June—the month after the death of George Floyd and subsequent onset of protests and civil unrest—that most exceeded expectations, massively outpacing usually languid summertime sales.

That suggests images of stores being looted and buildings being burned across many of America’s largest cities drove citizens to purchase guns at even higher rates, relative to usual seasonal patterns, than the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. David Kopel, a Cato Institute scholar with decades of experience in gun research, told the Washington Free Beacon the sales spike is clearly a response to the violence.

“Crime in general is a driver of gun sales,” he said. “And that includes not just individual criminals, but it also includes criminals who operate in large groups like rioters and looters. We had nationwide riots, mass violence, and police often ordered not to interfere or even overwhelmed. People understood more than ever that they have to be their own first responders.”

As Gutowski noted on his Twitter feed:

Gun sales tend to peak in March due to new models hitting stores and old models being cleared out (much like car dealerships) but then fall in the summer. This year was very different. The March peak was WAY higher than normal and June nearly matched it in raw sales!

The authors noted that while more guns were sold in March 2020 than in June 2020, June  is the bigger outlier once you account for seasonal effects—implying that the riots that began in June drove a bigger relative increase in gun purchasing than the onset of the Wuhan virus crisis in March.

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Large Number of First Time Gun Buyers are Women, Minorities

Posted in gun rights, Politics, tagged , , , , , on September 1, 2020| Leave a Comment »

If you Google “Gun Purchases and Women, Minorites”, you will come up with several stories in August that report a good portion of those 5 million new gun owners are first time gun owning women and minorities.  The National Shooting Sports Foundation reported last week:

NSSF surveys revealed that 58 percent of firearm purchases were among African American men and women, the largest increase of any demographic group. Women comprised 40 percent of first-time gun purchasers. Retailers noted that they are seeing a 95 percent increase in firearm sales and a 139 percent increase in ammunition sales over the same period in 2019.

These new gun owners make the gun community more diverse but the NSSF also said this is nothing new:

Against the backdrop of historically high firearm sales, one major theme is shattering misconceptions that America’s gun owners are “old white men.” A surge in gun buyers across the country in 2020, more than 2.5 million since March alone, has boosted the diversity of the firearm-owning population.

While surprising to some, it’s not to those in the firearm industry. Today’s gun buyer looks more like the rest of America. They represent all walks of life and those buying firearms today increasingly are women, minorities and more urban than in previous generations.

Yesterday,  Cam Edwards, editor of Bearingarms.com and the host of Cam and Company, spoke with Tony Simon who has hosted a Diversity Shoot at New Jersey gun range Gun for Hire for several years.  He had to move it this year due to New Jersey’s onerous Wuhan Virus restrictions but it will be held this month.

Tony told Cam he didn’t expect these new gun owners to become gun rights activists right away.  I tend to agree but even folks like Gun Talk Radio’s Tom Gresham has said he doesn’t think these new gun owners are going to want to ban the guns they just bought.  I’ve heard others in the firearms community say they think there is a chance some of these new gun owners will vote their rights.

If you are a woman and a new gun owner reading this, let me recommend A Girl and a Gun as a resource.  If you are African American and a new gun owner, let me recommend the National African American Gun Association and for everyone, I recommend the NRA.

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