One of the biggest spikes in gun purchases was when people bought guns to protect themselves from kamikaze 747 pilots.
Its the comfort of owning something to balance power for most people. Buying a gun and putting it unloaded in a safe never having fired it, to protect you from a trained terrorist group is no more going to work that protecting against a virus with the same gun.
Either way, "the whole world's going to hell" has sold more guns than any legislation or lack of legislation or any other event. And since ww2 (or maybe the missile crisis, idk before my time) I don't think America has seen any worse "the whole world is going to hell" mentality than during early covid.
When you stop people working who have been working since they were 16, and make people isolate and cover their faces, the departure from normal is scarey. When things are scarey, a big gun is comforting. Lol.
I live in the sticks and isolate as much as possible. So it suited me. But not working for several months was a shock for even me.
Very valid take on it. When covid hit and lockdowns started, I was inundated with calls from folks seeking advise about buying guns. Even a few coworkers and acquaintances of the more liberal persuasion who I never thought would own a gun talked to me about the subject.
The same thing happened when the riots started. People completely unaffected by the civil unrest in large cities far away were arming and stocking up on ammo.
One cannot shoot a covid virus. Antifa is unlikely to come to your house. And even .50BMG cannot kill an idea. So, why are there so many new, first time gun owners? Because it makes them feel better. They do not know what to do, but they have to do
something to protect themselves and their families. And owning a gun is, for many, a feelgood measure.
This has benefitted the firearms industry. But more so, it has benefitted the 2A movement. People who years ago would have been all about gun control, or at least anti-gun, are now amongst our ranks. Yes, there are certain areas where the fight continues, like in Oregon. But look at how many states have CCW that did not 20 years ago. Here in Ohio, we are now constitutional carry- no CCW needed. It passed with little opposition. That's a far cry from the days of our own Senator Metzenbaum stating he wants all our guns.
So, is S&W's current fiscal problem the end of the world for the 2A movement? Hardly. I see it as more indicative that the large block of panic buyers from the past few years are one and done types. They got their inexpensive, easy to shoot gun from a big name they recognize (ie: S&W) and don't plan to buy another one.
S&W does not exist to make guns. S&W exist to make money for it's stockholders. The folks steering the company already have a plan for the next quarter and the one after that. I am sure they have contingencies for further drops in demand as well as one for meeting demand when the next scary event reinvigorates the first time buyer market.
