Guns are popular things to buy. More than a million are purchased every single month, and are purchased despite the hassle of trying to buy them in many states. Why? Because they’re not just lifesaving devices, but they’re just awesome in general.
But, as with any consumer product, demand comes and goes.
In 2020, we saw a massive spike in demand for firearms due to the pandemic’s uncertainty, followed by the massive civil unrest that swept the nation during the “Summer of Love” that year.
Since guns are durable products, people don’t necessarily keep buying them, and as a result, Colorado just saw a significant dip in gun sales last year.
It’s been more than a decade since gun sellers in Colorado have seen demand this low, as the pandemic-era buying frenzy fully winds down.
Last year, there were 314,904 approved background checks for firearm purchases, according to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. It’s the lowest sales volume since 2014, and sales are down 35% since hitting record highs in 2020.
Background checks are not a perfect measure of gun sales, because one check could include more than one firearm purchased. But approved background checks are commonly used as a proxy for firearm demand.
The pandemic supercharged gun sales across the country and in Colorado. The combination of protests over the murder of George Floyd, lockdowns, and a presidential election pushed sales to unprecedented levels. In the years since, sales volume has steadily declined.
“When we hit peaks that were so astronomically high in 2020 and 2021, we knew that those numbers were not going to be sustainable, and we knew that they would come back down to Earth,” said Mark Oliva, managing director of public affairs at the National Shooting Sports Foundation, an industry trade group.
Oliva also pointed out that things are stabilizing, as there was slight growth in year-over-year sales last month.
However, let’s also keep in mind that Colorado just passed a lot of gun control recently, and that’s going to have an impact, and the gun stores are going to love it, at least for a little while.
The truth is that whenever you try to ban a particular type of gun starting on a specific date, you create a sense of urgency in potential buyers. Many people who have toyed with the idea of buying something like an AR-15, but never really have because there wasn’t any reason to do so right away, will suddenly figure it’s now or never. They’ll swarm gun stores and buy the soon-to-be-forbidden rifles, all to make sure they’ve got theirs before the ban kicks off.
So yeah, last year was the lowest point since 2014 in Colorado, but don’t expect 2026 to look that way in the least. Don’t be surprised if you see record numbers out of the state this year, as the sprint to arm up before the bans take effect gets into full swing.
Jared Polis and his fellow Democrats are going to sell a lot of guns in the next little while, even if they never intended to. Funny how that works out so often, ain’t it?
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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