Gun Sales Double For Smith & Wesson

Second Amendment

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Gunmaker Smith & Wesson reported that net sales doubled in its third quarter to $257.6 million compared to last year, with record net income of $62.3 million, in a continuation of the strong gun sales momentum that started with the beginning of the pandemic.  

In a call with analysts, Smith & Wesson Chief Executive Officer Mark Smith said it was the company’s third consecutive record-breaking quarter.  

He said that “panic buying” has been “driven by fear of gun regulation” and also “fear of personal protection.”

Smith said he believes his company outperformed the overall market, as measured by nationwide background checks for gun purchases. The Federal Bureau of Investigation reported that during that three-month span, background checks jumped 44%, compared to the year-ago quarter.

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Smith said that during the quarter, his company managed to ship 70% more “units” compared to last year. Most of the “units” produced by Smith & Wesson are guns. Smith said the company shipped out 473,000 handguns and 120,000 long guns, which includes rifles and shotguns, during the quarter.

The company has managed to deal with the surge in demand by its “flexible” outsourcing of manufacturing. Rommel Dionisio, analyst for Aegis Capital, said that Smith & Wesson has benefitted from “their greater than average ability to flex up their manufacturing platform compared to other competitors in the firearm space,” helping the company to take market share.

Background checks are not the same as sales, since one check could be used to buy multiple firearms in one purchase, and would-be buyers can also fail the background check and not be able to buy a gun. But the FBI data still serves as the closest nationwide proxy to gun sales

Rival gunmaker Sturm, Ruger
RGR
has reported strong sales since the coronavirus pandemic swept through America a year ago. Americans are either buying guns for self-protection, or because they want to acquire them before President Biden, a Democrat who owns firearms, has a chance to implement his aggressive gun control plan.

People who buy guns for self-protection are nervous about rising crime and violent outbreaks of civil unrest, like the Capitol riots of Jan. 6. Smith & Wesson is aware of this dynamic and is reaching out to these customers. “9-1-1 when you have minutes, the Second Amendment when you don’t, ” says Smith & Wesson, in a marketing slogan on its web site.

More than eight million Americans have bought a gun for the first time since the pandemic started building momentum in early 2020, according to estimates from the gun industry group the National Shooting Sports Foundation. These new buyers are coming from coveted new demographics for the gun industry, with growing numbers of women, senior citizens and minorities.

People seeking to carry guns for self-protection tend to buy compact semiautomatic pistols, that are user-friendly for novices and easily concealed. Smith & Wesson says that the M&P Shield EZ pistol, a 9mm semiautomatic, is one of its most popular firearms. Competing models including the pocket-sized LCP from Sturm Ruger, the G3 from Taurus, the P229 compacts from Sig Sauer, the APX carry pistols from Beretta, and the omnipresent Glock, a favorite for police officers.

People who are buying guns because of the specter of more restrictive gun control are often buying assault rifles, the military-style semiautomatic rifles for civilian buyers that the industry prefers to call modern sporting rifles. This includes AR-15s, which were invented by Eugene Stoner for ArmaLite and then Colt, a now-bankrupt company that has produced the rifles for the U.S. military as M16s during the Vietnam War, and as M4s during the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Smith & Wesson produces a line of AR-15s called the M&P 15. Many of the most prominent gunmakers have their own line of AR-15s, including the AR-556 from Sturm, Ruger, the DDM4 from Daniel Defense, the Resolute 300 from CMMG, the SIG MPX from Sig Sauer, the ARX from Beretta, the MR556A1 from HK and the REC7 from Barrett.   

President Biden is planning to ban the manufacture of assault rifles, including AR-15s, for the civilian market. AR-15s have been used in multiple mass shootings.

Many buyers are acquiring these rifles in anticipation of Biden’s plans, though he hasn’t implemented any gun control measures yet. But buying a gun ahead of more restrictive gun control doesn’t make the owners exempt from more restrictive measures. As part of the proposed ban, existing owners would have to register the assault rifles according to the specifications of the National Firearms Act, which is a months-long background check process requiring a $200 tax.  

If they can’t or won’t register their guns under the NFA, they have option of selling their rifles to the government as part of a national gun buyback plan.

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