Wall Street Journal: Voting With Their Guns

The Wall Street Journal had a great article earlier this week titled "Voting With Their Guns" about the surge in gun sales in July, adding to the massive numbers that we have seen since the start of the Wuhan Virus and the unrest around the country after the death of George Floyd.

The FBI’s most recent gun-sale figures are stunning. They show that in July the bureau carried out 3.6 million background checks, the third highest month on record. Adjusting to reflect checks only for gun purchases, the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) says this translates to 1.8 million gun sales for July 2020—a 122% increase over July 2019. The 12,141,032 gun sales through this July is just shy of the 13,199,172 sales for all of 2019.

These record sales are best understood as a referendum on the riots, and the growing lack of confidence many Americans have that police will protect them. This is more than National Rifle Association spin.

According to NSSF's statistics, first time buyers make up a huge portion of these numbers.  Women and minorities make up a large portion of the new buyer numbers.  NSSF survey's its members which are Federal Firearms Licensees among other outdoor companys (NSSF is a trade association, and their membership is not made up of the general public).  

Some think these new gun owners are going to change the way they have been voting just because they bought a gun.  I agree with firearms trainer Rob Pincus when he says we are kidding ourselves if we think that is magically going to happen.  He addressed this issue with Armed American Radio's Mark Walters last week, before the July numbers were reported.

From Rob's Facebook post with the above video:

If you think there’s a significant number of voters who traditionally vote Democrat who are going to vote Republican in the Fall just because they bought a gun during the pandemic or recently got a CCW Permit, you’re nuts.

The gun community needs to stop pretending that gun rights are a conservative issue.  Gun ownership and the defense of one’s self is a Human Right. The Rights protected by the Second Amendment are universal Civil Rights.

We need to be working with liberal gun owners to change the position of the Democratic Party, not trying to shame them if they don’t vote for Trump. That’s a colossal waste of time, unless you just want to entertain your echo-chamber.

Absolutely agree with Rob's point that this should not be just a Republican issue.  When you have large numbers of Democrats who care about firearm rights, their candidates for office will have to stop and think about using it as a campaign issue and passing new gun control because it will cost them votes.  As is stands now, they have no interest in preserving the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment because they don't think it will cost them.