I’ve heard stories since the reelection of Barack Obama that sales of firearms and related accessories are through the roof. We’ve even posted one or two things about panic buying (and may have participated ourselves a bit). But now that I have actual hard proof, its time to make it official. Barack Obama is the best firearms salesman in the history of the world ever . . .
It started with one of my FFL friends telling me about 3,000 SureFire Magazines flying off the shelf in a couple days. BTW, by the time that posted, they had sold 3,600 and were out of stock at the distributor level. Aim Surplus has a big-ass sticker on their home page warning of increased wait times for processing. And the CEO of Primary Arms gave me a heads up that there were no black PMAGs to be had, and the stock they do have is going fast.
While all of these things are indicators of increased sales, I didn’t have any numbers to back the idea up. Panic buying was still an unconfirmed rumor. But thanks to New Frontier Armory‘s president, I now have some concrete numbers.
For the period of 7 Nov 12 to 16 Nov 12 compared to the period one month prior (7 Oct 12 – 16 Oct 12) our in store and web sales combined (retail only) are up 176%. Wholesale sales from our MFG side is up 235% for the same period comparison.
New Frontier Armory makes polymer AR-15 lower receivers as their niche in the market, but they also do the standard aluminum ones. And a 235% bump in sales is definitely not a hiccup.
They also run a retail store in Las Vegas, NV. David shared some insight as to what the mindset of the shoppers is like:
I’ve had a number of higher net worth individuals come in and just clear the shelf. One of them bought every colt AR15 I had on the rack. Another bought every single Lancer AWM 5.56 magazine I had on the shelf.
Remember, gun owners are not short of opinions and irrationality. You could have a retail store with 20 people in it browsing and not buying anything and all it takes is ONE GUY to walk in, buy all the 9mm off the shelf or buy all of one type of magazine, or all three AR15’s on the rack – and suddenly the other 19 people in the room are going “Oh shit, maybe this guy knows something” and then they start buying and then the cycle repeats. Same thing with internet anecdotes Nearly everyone knows of or has seen the one guy buying all the whatever and they say it on the internet and pretty soon everyone else is doing the same thing. It’s textbook domino theory.
There’s a concept called “sympathetic fire” where if one person starts shooting at a standoff then everyone else does as well. Sounds like the same mentality is alive and well in people’s shopping habits, too.