After a major drop in gun sales following the election of President Donald Trump, sales have picked up again in recent months, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), a firearms trade industry association.
Nearly 4.8 million firearms were sold between May and October, an increase of roughly 6 percent from 4.5 million in the year-earlier period.
The trend appears to have accelerated in September and October, when sales rose 15 and 10 percent, respectively, from the same months a year ago.
The boost in sales follows a major slowdown that started in December 2016 following the election of Trump.
The numbers are based on the NSSF’s analysis of data from the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check (NICS) system.
The data indicates that gun sales more than doubled between 2005 and 2016, reaching more than 15.7 million in 2016. However, sales dropped by more than 11 percent in 2017 and then more than 6 percent in 2018, to some 13.1 million.
While it’s not clear why exactly the sales started to pick up again in May, it could be that some people were spooked by Trump’s ban on bump stocks, devices that allow semi-automatic rifles to fire almost as rapidly as automatic weapons. At least some gun rights advocates opposed the ban.
The acceleration of sales in September and October followed heightened gun-regulation rhetoric from then-Democratic presidential candidate and former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke.
In early August, shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and in El Paso, Texas, left a combined 32 people dead and 51 injured.
Mass shootings are usually followed by an increase in gun sales, due to buyers’ safety concerns or because people expect a backlash to ownership from gun control advocates.
O'Rourke, whose hometown is El Paso, escalated his rhetoric after the shootings and proposed a mandatory buyback.