https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fear-big-sales-propelled-record-breaking-black-friday-gun-checks-n824276Want to sell more guns? Talk about gun control — or offer customers a killer deal.
Fear of a crackdown in the wake of the recent massacres in Las Vegas and Texas appears to be one of the reasons why Black Friday was a banner day for gun buyers, with the FBI reporting a record 203,086 background checks for weapons purchases on the day after Thanksgiving, arms merchants and gun control experts told NBC News on Monday.
"We had the best Black Friday day of sales ever," said Michael Cargill, owner of Central Texas Gun Works in Austin, Texas. “We just had a church shooting here in Texas, so people are talking about increasing security and buying guns for security teams.”
Asked to explain the Black Friday gun check surge, Miller said one the reasons could also very well be as mundane as people having more expendable cash to spend on weapons.
“Are people doing better economically now?” he said. “I think a lot of this has to do with guns being on sale. That’s my hunch.”
Gun sales, which skyrocketed when President Barack Obama was in office, have actually “declined or at least levelled off under President Trump," Webster said.
That’s largely because Trump hasn’t pushed for gun control, not even after some of the deadliest massacres in U.S. history, experts said. And because there’s “some degree of saturation.”
“Those who want guns have them and have enough of them,” Webster said. “Obama was good for the gun lobby to use as a foil to make people believe that Obama was after their guns. I don’t think Barack Obama did anything that would have warranted that response. But the people who were most vulnerable to the gun lobby’s claims may also have greater suspicions about the first African-American president.”