“When you hear more calls for firearm restrictions, we have observed gun sale increases primarily from people buying before they’re not able to,” said Rob Southwick, founder of the market research firm Southwick Associates.
It’s too soon to know how the back-to-back shootings will affect sales of firearms, industry experts say. Reliable figures from federal background checks won’t be released until next month. But if history is any guide, gun dealers and manufacturers can expect a surge in demand.
“I don’t need to wait another minute, let alone an hour, to take common-sense steps that will save lives in the future,” Biden said, listing a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, as well as strengthening the background check system by closing loopholes, as areas he would like to see Congress act.
The pattern of rising gun sales following mass shootings has held true regardless of which political party is in power: Fears of future restrictions prompt gun owners to stock up.
Soon after that shooting, President Donald Trump vowed to outlaw bump stocks -— attachments that essentially allow shooters to fire semiautomatic rifles continuously with one pull of the trigger. At his direction, the Justice Department later banned bump stocks in the United States, despite objections from gun lobbies.
“It’s a longstanding pattern,” said David Kopel, an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank.
The firearms industry wants to hear the results of the investigation into the Boulder mass shooting before proposing solutions, said Mark Oliva, spokesperson for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a gun industry trade group.
“We want the investigative process to go forward as it needs to,” Oliva told CNN Business. “We urge Congress and the White House to do the same.”