The ‘Wall Street Journal’ Proclaims the Trump Slump is Back Again

Cue the hysterics.

In a Wall Street Journal article by Zusha Elinson and Cameron McWhirter, The Trump Slump Is Back, Gun Makers Say, all the usual tropes appear about slowing gun sales due to a lack of consumer fear about the government taking away Second Amendment rights. Though the authors did note that, “The downturn appears to be a milder echo of the precipitous drop in sales following Trump’s election in 2016” they didn’t hold back on the putting fear front and center.

And why not? We’d seen a similar boom in gun sales under Obama. We at The Outdoor Wire conferred a special title on Trump’s predecessor, stating, “In recognition of the unprece­dented demand for firearms by nervous consumers, The Outdoor Wire, the nation’s largest daily electronic news service for the outdoor industry, has named President-elect Barack Obama its “Gun Salesman of the Year”.

That was then, and we’ve learned our lessons. The first of which is that if the mainstream media tells you Hillary Clinton is going to win — or that Joe Biden is ‘as sharp as I’ve ever seen him,’ or ‘Kamala Harris in joyful and has the momentum’ — you might want to take a step back and reconsider things.

The second lesson is that it’s not a good idea to get too far out over your skis when it comes to manufacturing production for a ‘crisis’ that has not yet occurred. And that’s exactly what the NSSF’s Larry Keane told the Wall Street Journal. “This time around, gun executives didn’t order a big buildup before the election.”

The Journal attributes the eventual end of the first Trump Slump to the “onset of the pandemic as gun sales rose to record levels, driven by worries of rising crime, riots and looting.” That certainly happened, but those sales were supercharged by the federal government’s pandemic payouts. Through the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES Act) taxpayers received up to $1,200 per adult, and up to $3,400 for a family of four, in direct financial relief (i.e., cash).

If you thought that money wasn’t being spent on guns, ammunition, and accessories, then you weren’t working in the firearms and ammunition industry at the time. Everything was selling, and not at any kind of a discount. I know, I was a buyer back then.

Had the government not flooded the economy with “free” money, would we have seen such a spike in sales? Probably not. A spike, yes, but not one to the tune of 21,083,643 NICS checks (NSSF-adjusted NICS) for the year. Prior to that the best year in terms NSSF-adjusted NICS checks was 2016 with 15,700,471 checks. That, my friends, is a historic spike.

The spike was also based on a fear of crime, rioting, and looting? Or was it the realization that the government, from city to state to the federal level, is unable – or worse…unwilling to stop or even try to prevent a surge in criminal activity.

I, like so many others, bought back then because I knew I would be my own first line of defense should the worst come my way. And like so many others, I couldn’t tell you what role, if any, government would play in my defense. A distant second? Or a third, perhaps even fourth line of defense?

The problem is that these huge spikes in sales have become the new standard by which we judge firearms sales, and anything that isn’t on a par with those spikes is somehow considered a downturn, a market softening, a slump. Even the WSJ article’s authors note the continued long term strength of firearms sales in America, writing, “Last year’s 15.2 million checks for gun sales was down from a peak of 21.1 million in 2020, but it was still above prepandemic levels, according to the NSSF.”

What’s somehow missing from their analysis is what’s actually behind any so-called Trump Slump 2.0, and that’s the abysmal economy, including inflation and interest rates, that Trump inherited. When Biden was elected the mainstream media constantly told us he had been handed a bad economy by Trump. But now, of course, just a couple weeks into his second term, any economic issues are entirely Trump’s fault.

It’s amazing how, despite Trump’s winning 312 electoral votes and all swing states in a resounding victory, the Biden/Harris economy somehow wasn’t the issue driving voters. We’re now repeatedly told by all of the smartest people that Trump’s win was mostly the result of racism and sexism.

Having grown up during the Reagan revolution, I can tell you this feels a lot like the period coming off of Jimmy Carter’s malaise. Were the early years of Reagan’s first term the zenith of economic resurgence? Not at all, but everyone knew it would be getting better, and it was a hell of an improvement over things under Carter’s rule. That’s why Reagan’s election campaign slogan was a simple one: Are you better off than you were four years ago?

Those same notes of optimism are in the air now, including within the firearms and ammunition industry. Even the Wall Street Journal — no fans of Trump — couldn’t overlook it. “Despite the industry’s sales slump, the mood at SHOT Show, the industry’s annual trade show in Las Vegas held in January, was ebullient, according to those in attendance.”

No kidding. We know what a bad economy, high inflation, and a feckless leader does to business. We also know what happens in a strong and growing economy. We’ve all been there and done that during Trump’s first term.