Did you buy a gun on Black Friday? If so, you were not alone. The FBI reported 203,086 requests for background checks on the busiest shopping day of the year. That is a new one-day record for background checks. The two previous one-day records were also set on Black Friday. It seems that plenty of people kick off their holiday shopping with the purchase of a new gun.
We can only speculate on why interest continues to be strong on Black Friday, but folks who watch these things closely will likely say it has something to do with recent rhetoric out of Washington concerning another push for more gun control.
The last time gun sales were really strong was during the run up to the 2016 presidential election, when everyone in the world was pretty much convinced that Hillary Clinton would win the White House. Even I bought a bunch of AR-15 magazines before the election.
Following the election, gun sales slumped. In fact, they fell like a stone. Sales dropped so low that there was real worry by some manufacturers about whether or not they would stay in business. Gun makers and gun sellers struggled most of the year. Then tragedy, in the form of two high-profile mass murders, struck. And, in the words of Rahm Emanuel, “You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.”
Before the families even had time to grieve, Democrats were talking about gun control. They were talking about gun control despite the fact that between 1993 and 2013, the number of privately owned guns in the U.S. rose by 56 percent, while the homicides committed with guns dropped by 49 percent.
But just like a Tweet by President Donald Trump can move the stock market, talk of gun control can cause honest citizens to buy more guns. There is a measurable cause-and-effect situation that happens with such talk.
Still, I don’t like being reactionary and I don’t like the fact that the gun industry is victim to the whims of politics. I prefer to buy guns all the time. If I had more money, I would have more guns. I would also have more ammo. And I would shoot more of that ammo. Maybe I’m a little bit odd. But maybe not.
I firmly believe that guns in the hand of honest citizens reduce crime. It is a fact that a concealed firearm on your person gives you the means to immediately and efficiently fight back against a violent assault. Without such means, you must hope you are stronger or faster than your attacker. So, when it comes to the topic of guns, I give a nod to the “great equalizer.” Don’t wait for the politics of fear to push you into buying a gun, or ammo, or going to get more training. Make guns part of your everyday life. Knowledge is power. Get smart about guns and self-defense. Your life may depend on it.
