The gun industry sees new highs as sales skyrocket across the nation

ELKHART, Ind. --- Nationwide the gun industry is experiencing a boom like never before. Data shows that sales from January to September of this year have seen 1,200,000 Americans submit firearm background checks, breaking a record. 

With sales way up at the end of September, industry insiders explain how the pandemic, protests, and the current political climate are reasons behind the high demand for firearms. 

"We're gonna have all of our rights under the constitution, have an electoral college, the Supreme Court, or something totally different," said gun shop owner Doug Rhude. 

According to the small arms analytics and forecasting, there was an estimated 66% increase in firearm sales compared to September 2019. If that is not interesting enough, it is worth noting the country has already outpaced total firearm sales from last year with October, November, and December's numbers still to be accounted for. 

Citizens everywhere are looking to protect themselves, which has translated into the gun industry being pushed to the brink just to meet the insane amount of demand they are currently experiencing. This leaves gun owners like Rhude to rely on relationships they've built with distributors to keep stores stocked with any products they can get. 

"When things like this happen a lot of things go to allocation, and by that I mean if a distributor gets just a few items in, they allocate them to what they call their best dealers," said Rhude. 

His store, Doug's Gun Shop in Elkhart, has a huge selection of inventory that he has kept stocked since the pandemic began. He is glad he did this early because the violent protests we've seen this year, along with the current political climate has kept demand high. 

"When the pandemic hit it became reality to a lot of people that it could really happen to us here in America. So lots and lots of people rushed in and bought guns for the first time, with second-time buyers as well," said Rhude.

With what we have seen this year, along with what's to come citizens are protecting themselves more than ever, and the sales will not be slowing up anytime soon. 

"Depending on how the election goes, so that has brought even more emphasis on it. So we've had three big things happen this year the pandemic, riots, and now the election," said Rhude. 

High demand combined with a generation of first-time buyers is evidence this industry will continue to perform strongly for the foreseeable future.