{"id":57848,"date":"2020-08-06T09:03:50","date_gmt":"2020-08-06T14:03:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=57848"},"modified":"2020-08-06T09:03:50","modified_gmt":"2020-08-06T14:03:50","slug":"57848","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=57848","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Voting With Their Guns<\/a><\/p>\n

There\u2019s nothing like nationwide protests and a murder surge in major cities to cause a spurt of new gun sales. Gun controllers may want to rethink their 2020 strategy.
\nThe FBI\u2019s 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\u2014a 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.
\nThese 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.
\nPlenty of Democrats own guns, many of them the blue-collar Democrats who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 and whom Joe Biden hopes to woo back. Forty percent of first-time buyers are women. An NSSF survey of gun retailers reports that sales to black Americans are up 58.2% for the first six months of this year, the largest increase for any demographic group.
\nOne question is whether this new interest in guns will change the issue of gun violence in this election year. A year ago gun controllers were on the march, as Democrats used the issue to gain control of the Virginia Legislature, which proceeded to limit handgun purchases. Michael Bloomberg\u2019s Everytown for Gun Safety, which helped those Virginia Democrats, is trying to pull off similar victories this year with a $60 million campaign.
\nThe policy contrast between the presidential candidates is stark. Mr. Trump talks up the Second Amendment at every rally. Mr. Biden this year called gun manufacturers \u201cthe enemy.\u201d In March he told a Democratic auto worker who accused him of trying to \u201ctake away our guns\u201d that he was \u201cfull of s\u2014.\u201d He\u2019d ban sales of so-called assault weapons and fine existing owners who don\u2019t register them.
\nBut if police are reluctant to enforce current gun laws, as in New York City, what\u2019s the point of new limits on gun ownership? The debate has also shifted from mass shootings to public safety, especially in big cities where gun violence is rampant. The larger lesson is that if liberals won\u2019t control crime, expect more Americans to buy guns in self-defense.<\/p>\n

But the political landscape has changed.<\/p>\n

First came Covid-19, which increased Americans\u2019 concern for their safety. These fears escalated as the protests following the death of George Floyd at the hands of police turned violent. Americans saw police forces across the country unable to protect their cities against rioting mobs. One result is that gun sales have shot through the roof, with an estimated 40% of purchases this year going to first-time buyers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Voting With Their Guns There\u2019s nothing like nationwide protests and a murder surge in major cities to cause a spurt of new gun sales. Gun controllers may want to rethink their 2020 strategy. The FBI\u2019s most recent gun-sale figures are stunning. They show that in July the bureau carried out 3.6 million background checks, the … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rkba","category-safety"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=57848"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57850,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57848\/revisions\/57850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}