During the Obama administration monthly gun sales soared, jumping from about 850,000 in October 2009 to more than 1.3 million in October 2016, a gain of more than 50 percent.
With gun sales now averaging more than 1.25 million a month, what it took the Obama administration to accomplish in eight years the present administration has accomplished in two.
Of course, the present resident of the Oval Office has had some help. Crime in Democrat-controlled cities, thanks to progressive George Soros-backed district attorneys, has also soared. Of the 30 cities experiencing the highest crime rates, Democrats run 27 of them.
The momentum in gun sales was aided and abetted by the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision in June. In that decision not only did the highest court in the land rule that New York’s “may issue” restrictions on concealed carry licenses violated the Second Amendment, the high court went further: it ruled that the Second and the Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution protect an individual citizen’s right to carry a handgun for self-protection outside the home.
Writing for the 6-3 majority in the case — New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen — Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas held:
When the Second Amendment’s plain text covers an individual’s conduct [here the right to bear arms], the Constitution presumptively protects that conduct.
[Any state or local] government [contesting that right] must then justify its regulation by demonstrating that it is consistent with the Nation’s historical tradition of firearm regulation.
Only then may a court conclude that the individual’s conduct falls outside the Second Amendment’s “unqualified command.”
This was huge, and is resulting in dozens of lawsuits being filed successfully against states with laws that are in violation of those same amendments. That would include Illinois, with its infamous Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) card, as well as North Carolina, Minnesota, Nebraska, Hawaii, Michigan, Maryland, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, which have similar “permit to possess” requirements.
With an estimated 20,000 to 25,000 present gun control laws now subject to repeal or serious modification, gun owners are seizing the opportunity to exercise their Second Amendment right by purchasing firearms in record numbers.
That momentum favoring the Second Amendment should flow over into the midterm elections on Tuesday. Voters in Oregon will have a chance to toss the state’s present “permit to purchase” requirement, while voters in San Jose, California, will have the opportunity to rein in the City Council’s demand that all gun owners pay a fee to exercise the right to purchase a firearm as well as buy liability insurance for the privilege.
In addition, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF, which just released the October numbers), a “sizeable number” — estimated at between five million and eight million — of those twenty or so million people purchasing firearms so far this year are brand-new gun owners. They are likely to be very possessive of their right to keep and bear arms, and are equally likely to vote against politicians running on a platform to infringe on that right.
