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In The House Gun Ban: They Really Do Hate Us, I noted the rapidly increasing number of black female, first time, gun owners:  

In the first six months of 2021, nearly 87% of gun stores nationwide had an increase in African American women buying firearms, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation. Hoosiers are following the trend, too.

Vaden’s Firearms & Ammunition, located on the city’s east side, has been in business for almost six months. Owner Ryan Vaden said he has already seen a huge increase in sales, especially among black women. Vaden said six out of ten of his in-store customers are Black women as well as 90% of his out of state sales. Many of them first time gun owners. It’s all part of a national trend.

That particular demographic is far from the only one snatching guns and ammunition of all kinds off the shelves, as Peter Suciu at 19FortyFive reports:

Gun Sales Remain Strong for the 36th Straight Month – As lawmakers debated how to place new restrictions on firearms, many Americans opted to show their support for the Second Amendment by purchasing a new gun. Just last Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted

narrowly, largely on party lines, to ban the sale and manufacture of some semi-automatic firearms. Democrats argued that the Constitution does not protect such guns, which they contend have become a favored tool used by mass shooters to kill large numbers of people.

“The assault weapons ban would take the weapons of war off our streets and save countless lives,” said Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.).

My aforementioned article proves Nadler is full of Schiff, as one might expect.  By all means, take the link.

Republicans countered that the firearms were among the most popular in the country among law-abiding gun owners, and stressed that semi-automatic firearms are still fully protected by the Second Amendment. Clearly, many Americans seemed to agree with the latter sentiment, as gun sales hit a new record in July – becoming the 36th consecutive month to see firearms purchases exceed a million units.

‘That’s a tremendous milestone, especially taken in light of the actions of Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives last week,’ explained Mark Oliva, spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearms industry trade association.

That’s a genuine understatement.

‘The House held committee hearings and passed legislation that would ban the most popular- selling centerfire rifle in America — the modern sporting rifle, along with some models of semi-automatic shotguns and handguns,’ Oliva continued. ‘They did this even after admitting they knew the legislation was unconstitutional and defied U.S. Supreme Court precedent. Law-abiding Americans also voted — over 1.2 million times last month and hundreds of millions of times over the last three years — to remind Congress that Second Amendment rights belong to the people.’

“…they knew the legislation was unconstitutional…”  But of course they did.  I’ll address this, and other reasons gun sales continue to set records, shortly.

According to the NSSF, firearms sales reached 1,233,115 –  based on the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), which recorded a total of 2.4 million checks in July. That number includes non-sale FBI background checks, such as those who seek to get a concealed carry permit.

The numbers from the trade association were similar to findings from the research firm Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting (SAAF), which estimated that July 2022  saw about 1.3 million in unit sales. While it was a year-over-year decrease of 5.0 percent relative to July 2021, SAAF noted that sales have still remained at pre-pandemic levels.

Keep in mind each NICS check does not represent only a single firearm sale.  If I buy three guns at one time, that’s a single NICS check.  If I stop by the next day and buy another gun, that’s two checks, four guns.  Certainly not every NICS check represent multiple guns, but I’m certain a not-insignificant number do, so even with checks for non-purchase reasons, it’s a virtual certainty, the numbers of guns bought—not just “gun sales”—is at least as high as the article reports, and likely higher.

‘Apart from June 2022 numbers, the July 2022 data continue this calendar year’s overall year-over-year decrease in firearms unit sales,’ explained SAAF Chief Economist Jurgen Brauer. ‘Nonetheless the contrast to prior years is remarkable, with total (estimated) unit sales from January to July of 7.4 million in 2019, 13.1 million in 2020, 11.9 million in 2021, and 10.0 million thus far in 2022.’

According to the SAAF’s report, which is also based on the NICS data, the decrease affected the handgun segment, which saw a 4.6 percent decline, slightly less than the long-gun segment, where there was a 7.4 percent decrease. Last month, handguns outsold long-guns by a factor of 1.77 handguns per long-gun.

Why the dramatic and long lasting increase in gun sales?  It’s largely because Americans are not as stupid as the self-imagined elite imagine they are.  And because they’re not, here are some of the reasons:

*Whenever D/S/Cs take the presidency, and/or the legislative branch, Americans know their liberties are in danger, and none more so than Second Amendment liberties.  In the last several decades, this trend has dramatically played out, with Barack Obama being universally declared one of the greatest gun salesmen of all time.  The mere thought of a Hillary Clinton presidency sparked a huge increase in gun sales, and so has the Biden meat puppet presidency.

*D/S/Cs have no respect for the Constitution or any law that does not give them greater power or allow them to oppress others.  Congress passing an anti-liberty/gun law they admit is unconstitutional is a feature, not a bug.  They’ll be able to harass manufacturers and gun owners, perhaps for years, before the case ever makes it to the Supreme Court, which may, or may not–court packing!–overrule them.

*Human nature, particularly American nature, dictates when politicians want to take something away, Americans are going to tell them to go to Hell in a variety of creative ways.

*The lawlessness of the “summer of love” era has convinced Normal Americans, people who expect nothing more than to be left alone to raise their families and enjoy life under the Constitution and rule of law, the social compact is falling apart.  In fact, D/S/Cs, beginning with the 2020 election, which a substantial portion of the population believes was rigged, have convinced even D/S/Cs government is not to be trusted, not with their money, and certainly not with their safety.

*”Defund the police” malicious lunacy has demonstrated as nothing before the police cannot be trusted to protect anyone.  It’s a point I’ve been making since 2011 when I began this scruffy little blog: the police have no legal obligation to protect anyone, and can’t be successfully sued for failing to protect anyone.  They are obligated only to deter crime by their presence and investigate it after it occurs.

* The consequences of defunding the police have been rapid and so serious even D/S/Cs haven’t been able to ignore them.  In many places in the country, particularly big cities, and states ruled by D/S/Cs, Americans have been brutally taught there aren’t nearly enough police officers to keep themselves safe.  As a result, crime is rampant, and formally solid D/S/C voters have voted with their feet by moving to red states, a trend that continues.  As never before, people who previously though guns an absolute evil, have recognized guns for what they are: the great equalizer.

*Americans have also recognized several other police realities: (1) They are always understaffed, and when seconds count, they’re always minutes—even hours—away.  Police response time in major cities is an hour, even more, if they respond to 911 calls at all. The police love to be heroes, but in virtually every instance, they just can’t.  The realities of understaffing, time and distance prevent it. (2) When the police can’t know they’ll be given the benefit of the doubt, they’ll back off and do the absolute minimum.  It pays the same, and greatly diminishes the chance they’ll get sued, prosecuted and jailed for doing their jobs. (3) When the police, in an act of enlightened self-preservation, do the minimum, crime explodes, particularly in black neighborhoods.

*In many parts of the nation, the criminal justice system has disintegrated, and in large part, it’s on purpose.  Soros prosecutors not only refuse to prosecute crimes, they actively help criminals.  The elimination of bail, the release from jail of violent felons and psychopaths, and the refusal of judges to impose proper sentences have convinced Americans not only that they’re on their own, but the system is actively against them.  That our witless, insanely cackling Vice President, Kamala Harris, actually helped bail “mostly peaceful” rioters, arsonists and other violent thugs out of jail was surely a low point in America’s trust of government.

*Breathless media coverage of shootings, particularly mass shootings, has surely increased gun sales.  Media refusal to report the use of guns in lawful self-defense, usually without firing a shot, is also a factor.  It does not matter mass shootings, particularly school attacks, remain rare, hysteria, even false hysteria, is catching.

*Rhetoric and Legislation such as AR-15 bans, magazine capacity restrictions, red flag and firearm accessory bans convince Americans their government really does hate and want to harm them.  It also convinces Americans any government that tries to disarm them is not to be trusted and may have to be resisted by force of arms.  From a recent poll:  

On July 24, the Hill reported the pollsters found that “twenty-eight percent of all voters, including 37 percent of gun owners, agreed ‘it may be necessary at some point soon for citizens to take up arms against the government.’”

When responses were broken down by party affiliation, the poll showed 33 percent of Republican voters and 35 percent of Independent voters believe it may be necessary to take up arms.

One in every five Democrat voters believe they may have to take up arms as well.

*Incidents like the apparent law enforcement failure at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas–the SMM Uvalde Archive is here–have had a terrible affect on American’s trust of law enforcement and government.  They would like to believe that debacle was an isolated incident, and in a similar situation, it would never happen again, but government has convinced them we are far from reaching the bottom where governmental ineptitude and malice are concerned.

*Other instances of governmental incompetence, malicious idiocy and outright hate for Americans have convinced Normal Americans things could get worse—much, much worse—and if that happens, government would not be helping them.  Inflation, gas price increases, energy price increases, shortages of food, toilet paper and other commodities, shortages of baby food, the utter loss of trust in government over everything Covid, Climate Change lunacy, including government imposed fertilizer shortages which have already caused the collapse of at least one country, have convinced Americans they could find themselves out of fuel, food, work, and everything else.  They know if that happened, anyone unable to protect their lives and the lives of those they loved would be in deep, deep trouble.

*In a previously unimaginable cascade, institutions upon which Americans want and need to trust—the media being a prime example—have proved themselves untrustworthy.

*Government has thrown away decades of progress toward a truly color blind society, and is now actively pitting Americans against each other on the basis of race, gender, tribe and all facets of culture.  Americans know this won’t end well and need to be prepared.

*Any government that does not obey the rule of law, that ignores the Constitution, is a government that will not hesitate to do whatever it needs and wants to do to citizens.  Even D/S/Cs are waking up to that reality.

*Our wantonly open borders have dramatically increased crime, drug addiction, sex trafficking, imported terrorists, slavery, and reintroduced Third World diseases we long ago eradicated.  Americans are more than smart enough to see where this is going.

Final Thoughts:

These, and more, are issues I’ve raised in the Second Civil War series.  The SMM SCW archive is here.  Even those who don’t believe, whether because if they ignore the possibility, it can’t happen, or because they have a misplaced trust in D/S/C government, a second civil war is possible, or even likely, are beginning to reexamine their beliefs.  But even for those who dismiss the possibility out of hand, the realities I’ve mentioned herein are hard to ignore.  One doesn’t have to foresee open war to see many of our cities resemble Third World war zones, and crime is running out of control.

It doesn’t take much imagination to know what will happen if cities are without power for days or weeks, or if the social safety nets upon which so many depend tear or disintegrate.  Where mere survival is the order of the day, Americans are more than smart enough to know they want to survive, and are buying the tools necessary to the task.

To the absolute horror of anti-liberty/gun politicians, new gun owners discover shooting is fun, and provides a sense of confidence and accomplishment.  Worse, gun owners tend to vote against people who want to take their guns.  Horrifying for politicians, they have the means to actively resist those who would take them.  Could that be why our esteemed legislators are passing laws they know to be unconstitutional?  Do they want to provoke an armed revolt to see just how far they can push Americans?

Hmmm.  Could that be why unprecedented numbers of Americans are buying guns?  Because they really do know what politicians think of them and what they intend to do to them?