Anti-gun politicians like to claim that when they pass restrictive gun laws, they are simply doing the will of the people they represent. However, a sharp increase in gun sales just before and after such laws are passed tells a distinctly different story.
Larry Keane, senior vice president and general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the firearm industry trade association, made that point well in a recent report looking at gun sales in New Jersey and Virginia.
“The clearest way to measure the will of ‘The People’ isn’t always at the polls every two or four years,” Keane wrote in the report. “Sometimes the will of the American people reveals itself through action, especially when the government starts threatening to take their rights away.”
Such is the case, according to Keane, in New Jersey after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen ruling barred states from requiring ordinary citizens to prove a special need to carry a handgun in public for self-defense. At that time, applications greatly increased.
In Virginia, it’s playing out right now after lawmakers advanced extreme gun control measures, which Gov. Abigail Spanberger has mostly accepted, including a ban on the future sale, transfer, manufacture, and importation of many commonly owned semiautomatic firearms and magazines.
“Citizens in both states are reacting by heading to the gun counter to exercise their Second Amendment rights,” Keane wrote. “Both states expose the same political fiction. Gun control activists talk as though their policy preferences reflect the will of the public. But when New Jersey lifted its ‘justifiable need’ barrier, concealed carry applications surged. Likewise, as Virginia moved closer to a gun ban, Gov. Spanberger has signed several bills into law while altering others and sending them back to the legislature to approve. Customers are rushing to firearm retailers.
“In both cases, citizens are revealing a desire to exercise their Second Amendment rights if they sense a government creeping in to infringe on that right.”
As Keane pointed out, in Roanoke, citizens are voting with their wallets. One gun shop owner told WDBJ that daily firearm sales were running eight to 10 times higher than before the legislative session began, with customers specifically asking about AR-style rifles and other firearms that may soon be unavailable. Another retailer, WSET, said that parking was becoming a problem because of increased customer traffic, and that the proposed ban could affect 65 percent of one store’s inventory and 90 percent of another’s.
Overall, FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) reported 79,846 firearm background checks in Virginia in March, one of the highest monthly totals since the major surges of 2020.
Ultimately, Keane said the surge in sales proves an important point that anti-gun activists flatly ignore.
“The proposed ban targets firearms that retailers sell daily and Virginians want to buy for lawful purposes, which is their Constitutional right,” Keane concluded. “When politicians announce they intend to cut off future access to commonly owned firearms, citizens do not respond as though the products are irrelevant. They respond as though something important is being threatened, because it is.”