The Obama administration’s unfriendly stance toward the Second Amendment has had the opposite effect on the American people, who have been purchasing guns in record numbers. Smith & Wesson Holding Corp. reportedly put out a record number of firearms in 2012, according to government data.
Bloomberg News writes, “More than 8.57 million guns were produced in 2012, up 31 percent from 6.54 million in 2011, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Almost as many guns — 26.1 million — were produced during Democrat Barack Obama’s first term as president as during the entire eight-year presidency of his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, the ATF shows.”
The data seem to confirm a trend that more people purchase guns under Democratic administrations than Republican ones, since Democratic presidents are more likely to restrict firearms sales than Republicans. For example, following the tragedy at Sandy Hook in 2012 and the Aurora movie theater shooting, President Obama pushed for stricter gun measures.
Unfortunately for the president, his efforts have had the opposite effect than those intended. Immediately after the tragic December 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, gun sales soared and companies such as Smith & Wesson and Sturm & Ruger enjoyed significant production increases.
According to the Washington Times, monthly gun purchase background checks set an all-time peak in the same month as the Newtown shooting. But the shooting did little to slow that process, as the next four highest monthly totals for the national background check system all followed the 2012 shooting, in 2013.
“2013 was the best year for firearm sales (commercial, domestic) in history — period! That’s true for NH to Hawaii,” said Richard Feldman, president of the Independent Firearm Owners Association in Rindge, N.H. “Ruger alone sold well over one million guns this year.”
Some gun advocates even joked that President Obama is the gun industry’s best salesman.
“Barack Obama is the stimulus package for the firearms industry,” said Dave Workman, senior editor of Gun Mag, a publication of the 2nd Amendment Foundation, a gun-ownership rights group. “The greatest irony of the Obama administration is that the one industry that he may not have really liked to see healthy has become the healthiest industry in the United States.”
Following President Obama’s re-election in 2012, shares of Smith & Wesson increased 9.6 percent, while those for Sturm Ruger & Co. rose 6.8 percent. These increases followed an announcement by President Obama that he would consider reintroducing a ban on civilian purchases of military-style assault weapons.
Even worse for the Obama administration, the increase in gun sales coincides with a decrease in crime, according to FBI statistics, which report, “All offenses in the category of violent crime” fell during the first six months of 2013, compared to the same time period in 2012.
The data show that murders declined by 6.9 percent, forcible rape declined by 10.6 percent, aggravated assaults decreased by 6.6 percent, and robbery offenses dropped by 1.8 percent.
Second Amendment opponents assert that the increasing sales are a result of gun-rights groups “demoniz[ing]” Barack Obama during the 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns.
Brian Malte, senior policy director of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, states, “We see the percentage of households owning guns declining, and that indicates that those who already own guns are buying more of them.”
However, history reveals that President Obama is not the only Democratic president to witness the rise in gun production. Under President Bill Clinton, more than 33 million guns were manufactured, reports Bloomberg News, nearly five million more than were produced under George H.W. Bush’s presidency.
But Mike Bazinet, spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, notes other causes for the rise in gun demand, including Supreme Court decisions that have struck down gun restrictions, new laws permitting people to carry concealed weapons, and the growing popularity of sport shooting.
The American people have been given significant cause for concern regarding their Second Amendment rights, reveal investigations into the “Fast and Furious” gun-walking scandal.
Representative Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Oversight Committee that is leading the investigation into the scandal, told ABC News’ Jake Tapper that pertinent e-mails revealed the agenda of the operation was to advocate for greater gun control, not, as was alleged, to pursue criminal prosecutions of drug cartel members.
According to CBS News, “ATF officials didn’t intend to publicly disclose their own role in letting Mexican cartels obtain the weapons, but emails show they discussed using the sales, including sales encouraged by ATF, to justify a new gun regulation called ‘Demand Letter 3.’ That would require some US gun shops to report the sale of multiple rifles or ‘long guns.’ ”
An e-mail from ATF Field Ops Assistant Director Mark Chait to ATF Phoenix Special Agent Bill Newell, who was in charge of Fast and Furious, showed Chait asking Newell for “anecdotal cases to support a demand letter on long gun multiple sales” based on sales included in Fast and Furious.
In addition to these revelations, an article for Investors.com observed that citizens “clinging to their guns” have legitimate concerns:
Less than 24 hours after President Obama’s re-election, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations helped move the U.N.’s Arms Control Treaty a step closer to enactment. America joined 157 other nations in voting Wednesday to finalize the treaty in March. None was opposed and there were 18 abstentions.
U.N. delegates and gun-control activists had complained that talks collapsed in July largely because Obama feared attacks from Republican rival Mitt Romney if his administration was seen as openly supporting the pact. But once the election was over, the Obama administration had more flexibility to pull the trigger on supporting the pact.
And in 2013, the Obama administration had been accused of attempting to crowd out private consumers in the ammunition market after it was revealed that the Department of Homeland Security had bought up to 1.6 billion rounds of ammunition.
