Smith & Wesson Model 60 (courtesy The Truth About Guns)

As this morning’s quote notes, the prevailing political climate bodes well for gun sales (and makers). Yet the market isn’t impressed. Gun stocks sink as background checks hit decade low. We wouldn’t sell that SWHC or RGR stock just yet. Here are the stats and some more digestibles . . .

Adjusted (National Instant Criminal Background Check System) background checks rose 9.2% in March, with handguns up 16.7% and long guns off 3.4%; but sequential declines of 13.2% and 8.0% for handguns and long guns, respectively, were the weakest of the past decade and well below 10-year averages for hand guns (-2.6%) and long guns (+3.6%).

Judge rips thug: ‘Black lives don’t matter to black people with guns’ – Do tell. Look for upcoming protests outside the judge’s home.

Bullet lodges in Florida man’s testicles after wife shoots him, deputies say – “According to the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office, Reid had a gun and confronted her husband of 16 years to discuss his affair.” That was some discussion.

Hillary’s Latest Gun Attack On Bernie Is Not Backed Up By Federal Data – Wait, you mean Hillary’s arguments and philosophy’s not rooted in fact? Get outta town!

Schumer Wants New Smartphone Gun Investigated – “Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), one of America’s most enthusiastic gun-regulators, has called on the DOJ and the ATF to investigate the gun before it comes to market. The senator says the gun ‘is just a disaster waiting to happen.'” If there’s a better recommendation for the gun, we don’t know what it would be.

More Guns Does Not Mean More Murders – So now you know.

New York’s violent criminals have traded their guns for knives – “’Stabbings and slashings aren’t going away,’ Police Commissioner Bill Bratton said Monday at a press conference at NYPD headquarters. ‘It’s reality. We live in New York City.’” A place where armed self defense isn’t a reality. Good luck out there.

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31 COMMENTS

  1. Everybody has a gun. Or two. Or three. They’ll be another wave of 18-21 yo’s that have played video games all their lives wanting to get the guns they used on the computers for real.

    You can’t stop the signal.

  2. I own both RGR and SWHC, and I can tell to they are in fact up 0.4% and 2.5% today. And both have a strong 5 year growth pattern.

    • S&W and Ruger are ok investments if you are under 55 but I can give you a list of stocks that pay 4-5% starting with AT&T and Verizon. And over the long hall oil stocks are like gold. They are relatively cheap now so I would start buying them.

      • Thanks for the tip. I am building a diversified stock portfolio. Guns I only a small part. Gotta spread the money around.

    • RGR and SWHC are what I like to call “story” stocks. Wall Street has various “stories” running through their heads at any time, and last year, RGR and SWHC had a “story” running about how they were selling iron, hand over fist, and how the number of NICS checks just kept setting new records.

      This February, that story broke down, because many of the “analysts” on Wall Street don’t understand the stocks (and companies) they cover. In this case, they didn’t understand that there’s a seasonal pattern to NICS checks, where there’s a bit of a slump in CQ1 of any given year, and there’s a surge that comes on going into hunting season in the fall and then into the holidays in December.

      I sold out of my RGR and SWHC in February, and they’ll probably soften up even more from here, where I’ll buy them back again.

  3. NICS checks lowest in a decade? What are they smoking? Jan 2016, Feb 2016, and Mar 2016 were three of the five highest months for NICS checks since the system began in 1998!

    According to the FBI, in January 2016 they had to reassign so many people to do NICS checks that denial appeals had to be suspended because they lacked the manpower.

    2015 NICS checks surpassed all previous years by a wide margin, and so far 2016 is running 36 percent ahead of 2015 month to month. Someone is on drugs.

    • Agreed. In what universe is MSN operating? Sales have slowed, sure, but they are still higher than they’ve been in a very very long time.

      • Probably means the groth rate slowed. Not actual numbers.

        Anytime someone says “the percentage of X has dropped, but the number of Y has increased,” is a sure fire way of spotting deception. If apples are compared to apples, you have a reasonable comparison. If apples are compared to oranges, well, you get my drift.

        • If only journalists would take calculus, maybe they’d understand the difference between a quantity and its first and second derivatives… :-/

        • They were promised in Columbia J-School that there would be no math.

          They’ve planned their careers accordingly.

        • “They were promised in Columbia J-School that there would be no math.

          They’ve planned their careers accordingly.”

          And yet they have no compunction about parroting the numbers/math given to them in their question to manipulate readers/listeners … all for the greater good, of course.

          As I’ve said many times: Math is a Weapon.

          It may be THE weapon of greatest import in our present culture war.

        • @JR

          Math is a superpower. Especially calculus and above.

          (That doesn’t mean it isn’t also a weapon.)

      • Exactly.

        Mar 2016 5th highest
        Feb 2016 3rd highest
        Jan 2016 4th highest
        Dec 2015 1st highest (highest)

        The last four months have been out of this world, nearly 11 million NICS checks in just four months (not to mention all of 2015 being the highest ever!) This level of NICS activity has never been seen before.

        • Just try to find a Glock 19, or any Glock that’s not in .40 S&W in my location. The guns are not moving because the dealers are out of most if not all the popular guns. I know a small town gunshop that tries to keep the popular stuff in stock. He currently has a used G23 and Sig P938, all his other handguns are $1-3k 1911’s or in .22lr. He has gobs of hunting rifles but selling AR’s as soon as they go up. People are still buying but most of the demand is still high enouh to keep shelves minimal.

    • Remember, these are the same people who say “budget cut” when they mean “we didn’t increase it as much as we were going to.”

    • Yeah, lowest in a decade. I’ll start to believe that when I can find CCI standard velocity at my LGS for $25 a brick again.

    • “handguns up 16.7% and long guns off 3.4%; but sequential declines of 13.2% and 8.0% for handguns”

      So are handgun checks up 16.7%, down 13.2%, down 8.0%, or is this report just full of stink?

  4. “Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), one of America’s most enthusiastic gun-regulators, has called on the DOJ and the ATF to investigate the gun before it comes to market. The senator says the gun ‘is just a disaster waiting to happen.’” If there’s a better recommendation for the gun, we don’t know what it would be.

    Nobody has ever been shot reaching for a cell phone. THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING!

    /sarc

    • Shumer’s chubby niece made out with c3po on the cover of Rolling Stone. He’s worried she’ll see one of these new phone guns and it’ll start beeping and blinking and whirly-giggin and the next thing you know…

  5. In Hillary’s defense her lips were moving, so she can’t possibly tell the truth with them in that position.

    #HILLARYFORPRISON 2016

    Chains We Can Believe In!

  7. Its just hit a peak, not everyone belongs to the gun a month club. Ammo sales continue to rise and NICS does not represent private transactions

  8. How in the hell does one bullet get lodged in two testicles!?!

    Also, she might want to find a new self defense round. I don’t think she’s getting enough penetration out of her current load.

    • “set ’em to swinging, I’ll turn you from a rooster to a hen with one shot.”

  10. Agreed to the fella that said sales are slowed by lack of inventory. Its true. I went to pick up a P320 two weeks ago and the store was all out of sigs in 9mm only had .40 left. and almost all glocks exept G23. Seems like no ones wants the .40. for good reason too. Its a waste.

  11. I would offer that a large percentage of gun buyers are currently spending their disposable income on suppressors, instead of guns, as a consequence of ATF 41F. Look at silencershop.com… The entire store is sold out. Complete 180 from when I bought my suppressor in December last year.

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