In spite of recession, gun business taking off

By J. Patrick Coolican

Thursday, Jan. 20, 2011 | 2 a.m.

The gun business is surging, both nationally and in Nevada, evidenced by the more than 55,000 industry types who attended the National Shooting Sports Foundation trade show at the Sands Expo & Convention Center this week.

The robust firearms economy is showing striking defiance of the recession, as well as the ritual condemnations of gun violence in the wake of the recent shooting of 19 people, including a congresswoman, in Tucson.

Just as the recent electronics trade show gave the world tablet computers, so too did the Shooting, Hunting & Outdoor Trade (SHOT) Show give us the latest in shooting products.

Smith & Wesson’s Governor revolver allows for three types of ammunition at the same time. The sleek M&P 15 Sport Rifle will retail for $709. European scopes and custom gun parts from a Tucson machinist can improve upon an ordinary gun. Liberty gun safes, which are the size of a human, will keep your pieces safe. The Heckler & Koch .40-mm grenade machine gun is imposing, although not for home protection.

“It’s like waking up on Christmas everywhere you turn,” says an appreciative John Brand of Logan’s Gun Shop in Oklahoma.

The big, enthusiastic crowd would appear to be emblematic of the wider gun market: In 2009, the FBI and states processed 14 million requests through the instant background check system, up from 12.7 million in 2008.

In Nevada, the number of firearm background checks increased from 60,000 in 2007 to 94,000 in 2009, an increase of more than 50 percent. The figure dipped, although not much, in 2010.

Gary Giudice, a spokesman for Smith & Wesson, says guns have been a growth industry for years as more Americans experience the fun and challenge of hunting and target shooting or decide they want to arm themselves for protection.

By most accounts, though, there’s another reason for the spike in gun sales in recent years — what we might call the “Obama effect.”

The FBI recorded a sharp spike in background checks in the latter half of 2008.

The gun rights lobby and the conservative blogosphere sounded an alarm that President Barack Obama and a Democratic Congress would curtail gun rights, which sent many consumers scurrying into stores to stock up on guns and ammunition.

With time, however, the charge is looking baseless. Neither the Obama administration, nor its allies in Congress, have shown any interest in gun-control legislation, lest it hurt them in moderate states and districts.

Jennifer Duffy of the Cook Political Report notes that since Democrats blamed a spate of gun-control legislation for big losses in 1994, the party has all but surrendered on the issue.

Democrats can also be heard blaming gun control for Al Gore’s inability to win his home state of Tennessee in 2000, which would have delivered the presidency.

As a result, they’ve largely walked away from gun control.

Michael McDonald, a George Mason University political scientist, says, “The needle on public opinion has moved so far, and the political needle has moved so far away from gun control, that it’s hard to imagine the Democrats wanting to touch this.”

Indeed, the most striking aspect of the aftermath of the shooting of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords in Tucson this month has been the relative quiet on the issue of gun control, especially compared with school shooting incidents, which often have unleashed a loud and vituperative national debate over gun control.

The alleged shooter, Jared Loughner, legally bought a Glock 19 months before the shooting, and a high-capacity ammunition magazine was found at the crime scene.

Although the Tucson incident received more attention than most gun violence, it fit a long-standing pattern: As Time magazine recently reported, among 23 high-income countries, the U.S. had 80 percent of the gun deaths and a gun homicide rate nearly 20 times higher than the rest of the sample.

Gun-rights advocates point out that many of the homicides are committed with illegal guns, noting that enforcement of current laws would prevent many gun deaths.

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., said he would vote to re-up the assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004, but quickly walked back his statement, saying — correctly — that there is zero chance the ban would come up for a vote and that he’s not pushing for it.

Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., introduced legislation to ban high-capacity ammunition magazines, but the legislation probably won’t even reach the House floor.

At the SHOT show, many attendees said it was a tragedy what happened in Tucson, but noted that the apparently mentally ill man would have found a different weapon if he didn’t have a Glock. Also, with 280 million guns in America, nearly one for every man, woman and child, it’s not clear how effective gun-control measures can be.

Dawn and Jeff Stucker, who own a target shooting range in Asheville, N.C., and were inspecting the Smith & Wesson Governor, says they’re watchful of their customers, looking for red flags. “If something doesn’t feel right, it’s probably not right,” Dawn Stucker says.

The solution to America’s problem with violence is better parenting, Jeff Stucker says.

“Spend more time with the children, and figure out what they’re about.”