Lu Li didn’t believe it when his father-in-law told him former President Donald Trump had narrowly survived an assassination attempt this month. That was until Li saw televised news coverage confirming the shooting.
Trump’s close call was among the reasons why the Kennesaw resident headed to Adventure Outdoors in Smyrna this week. Located in a space that once housed a grocery store and billing itself as the largest independent gun retailer in the United States, the Smyrna business features more than 20,000 guns in stock, more than 100 yards of display counters and its own shooting range, restaurant and banquet hall.
As his wife and 7-year-old son watched, Li filled out federal paperwork at the store for a new 9-millimeter handgun made by Smyrna-based Glock.
“I wanted to get a gun for my own house for protection for a long time. And today is the day,” said Li, a school librarian.
Federal background checks, a major indicator of firearm sales, have fallen substantially every year in Georgia and across the nation since peaking amid safety concerns near the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
But the deadly shooting at Trump’s campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania is part of a head-spinning series of recent events in the news that could impact Georgia’s growing firearms industry: The head of the U.S. Secret Service resigned after the failed assassination attempt. Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race. And Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to replace him as the Democratic nominee.
Steve Schaefer / AJC
Steve Schaefer / AJC
Fears of violence and uncertainty during election years can influence gun sales. In the past, sales have seen a bump if consumers think Democrats, who support stricter gun controls, could win the White House.
Despite the attempt on Trump’s life, a senior advisor to his Republican campaign said the former president would protect gun rights by appointing federal judges who oppose new firearm limits, Reuters reported. At her campaign rally debut near Milwaukee this week, Democrat Harris spoke about passing “red flag laws” meant to remove guns from people deemed dangerous, universal background checks and an assault weapons ban.
The vice president leads Trump 44% to 42%, according to a national Reuters/Ipsos poll that was conducted after Biden endorsed her. The slim difference is within the poll’s 3-percentage-point margin of error. Trump had been leading Biden in polls.
The race could goose gun sales in Georgia, said Mark Franklin, who owns Franklin Gun Shop in Athens.
“You have a pretty stark contrast” between the candidates, he said. “If the election starts to swing one way or the other, I think we could see a change in sales. I hate to say this, but some of our best years were the Obama years … We saw an uptick after Biden won.”
Last month, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared firearm violence in America a public health crisis, emphasizing it is now the leading cause of death among children and adolescents.
In 2022, there were more than 48,000 firearm-related deaths in the United States, meaning about 132 people died from a firearm-related injury each day, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than half of those deaths in 2022 were suicides and more than four out of every 10 were homicides.
The gun industry’s marketing was a factor in gun sales rising early in the pandemic, said Adam Skaggs, chief counsel and vice president of the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
“The gun industry has spent years ginning up fears about safety and trying to convince Americans they should live in fear and that the only rational response to that fear is to buy a gun,” he said.
Gun industry advocates pointed to other things that affect firearms purchases, including politics and the economy.
“Some of the growth in purchasing can be traced to political events such as presidential elections,” said Jeff Adams, national sales manager for AimShot, an Alpharetta-based firearms parts and accessories business, “and any time that gun owners or potential gun owners think that a political change/laws might be in store for them, they will preemptively purchase firearms with the thought of ‘In case they change a law.’”
AimShot is part of Georgia’s thriving firearms industry. More than a dozen gun-related companies relocated or expanded here in recent years, investing $213 million and creating 2,175 jobs, according to the state’s Economic Development Department. Thirty-three related businesses generated more than $86.5 million in wages in Georgia last year.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation has named Georgia one of the top 10 states in the nation for firearms manufacturing. In 2021, Gov. Brian Kemp announced Remington Firearms would move its global headquarters from New York to Georgia and open manufacturing and research facilities in LaGrange. The following year, Kemp announced ammunition maker Norma Precision, a subsidiary of Beretta, would build a new manufacturing, assembly and distribution facility in Bryan County. That same year, Kemp signed into law a measure allowing Georgians to carry concealed handguns without first getting a license from the state.
This month, the governor posted on Instagram photos of his visit with Beretta leaders about Norma Precision’s factory near Georgia’s coast.
“We’ll continue working hard to keep Georgia the premier destination for manufacturing and industry!” Kemp said in his post.
Norma Precision, Remington and Glock did not respond to requests for comment.
But Jason Moss, who leads the Georgia Manufacturing Alliance, whose members include Daniel Defense in Bryan County, expects a bright future for the industry.
“Based on the business and gun-friendly environment in Georgia, I expect that we will continue to attract great brand names to Georgia and for us to grow even more great Georgia manufacturing jobs,” Moss said.
Meanwhile, gun store owners in Georgia are closely following the news. Franklin, the Athens gun store owner, said he hasn’t noticed a large increase in sales since the assassination attempt against Trump. In contrast, sales are up substantially at Smyrna’s Adventure Outdoors, said its general manager and part-owner, Eric Wallace.
“A lot of our customers are saying that if the Secret Service, which is known to be one of the best law enforcement agencies in the world, can’t protect a former president, how is our government going to protect us if something serious were to happen?” Wallace said.
For Bobby Gibbs, the shootings at Trump’s campaign rally and the presidential election did not influence his decision to visit Wallace’s store recently. A homebuilder from Rockmart, he wants a gun for protection while he works in remote parts of the state.
“I have a few different firearms and I am thinking about going to just one caliber,” he said moments before Wallace showed him some pistols. “I am a contractor, so I do a lot of riding and going around and looking at jobs. And sometimes I may be way out of the area, and you just never know what you might come up on.”
Federal background checks for firearms sales in Georgia/Nation:
2019: 316,656/13,199,172
2020: 569,018/21,083,643
2021: 474,202/18,515,188
2022: 429,969/16,425,484
2023: 408,325/15,848,055
*2024: 188,430/7,347,103
*Through June
Source: A National Shooting Sports Foundation analysis of National Instant Criminal Background Check System data.
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