Between the Covid-19 pandemic, the racial justice protests of the summer and the presidential election, Eric Davis, president of the Gun Owners of Vermont, said people seem to be feeling one thing very strongly this year: uncertainty.
And, according to Davis, the solution to some of that uncertainty? Buying a gun.
“At the start of the election, it really started taking off,” said Phil LaCroix, owner of LaCroix Muzzleloader and Supply in Colchester. “All my friends who own gun shops have seen the same thing. It just spiked up so high.”
Gun sellers across Vermont are reporting a spike in sales over the past few months. In a year that was already hot for gun sales, a contentious election and worries that a civil war might break out in its wake have only fueled the boom in the gun industry.
FBI background check data shows that in October 5,214 Vermonters at least attempted to buy a gun, up from 3,234 the same month in 2019 — a 61% increase. (Background-check data is not an exact number of gun sales conducted. Rather, it counts the number of people who got a background check, not the number of guns. It can include people who didn’t wind up buying a gun.)
While sales spiked this fall, the numbers don’t come close to the record highs at the beginning of the pandemic, when 7,023 checks were conducted in March alone.
A moderate spike is typical in the fall, especially with the onset of hunting season. But gun sellers don’t think that’s what is driving up the numbers this time.
“I think it’s mostly the election,” said David Pidgeon, owner of Pidgeon’s Gun Shop in New Haven. “They fear that Biden might win. He’s threatened a lot of confiscation and change in laws and so forth. A lot of people are very much afraid.”
LaCroix said he’s not sure it’s a Biden-specific fear. He said his store had a similar jump in sales in 2008, before Barack Obama was elected. However, he said, even if some gun buyers might worry about Democrats, the customers themselves don’t fall along strictly party lines.
“You can’t really put your finger on that; it’s definitely a mix,” LaCroix said. “With the Covid and stuff, it’s not just the election. People are kind of crazy out there.”
There is one big problem for gun shop owners: While plenty of customers are ready to buy, lots of shops are short on supply. Especially ammunition.
Ammunition manufacturers have not been able to keep up with the demand that began with the pandemic. Shortages are expected to last until at least January, as suppliers catch up.
A Suffolk University poll earlier this fall found that three of every four voters were worried about the possibility of violence on Election Day. Although that didn’t happen, many Americans are still worried about violence in the wake of a contentious election season, with slowly unfolding election results.
“I think we’re lucky that we live in a fairly peaceful state,” Davis said. “Up here, we don’t have to worry so much as some more urban areas. But you know, we’re not immune to that sort of thing.”
LaCroix said he’s seeing a lot of first-time gun owners recently, people who say they’re not feeling very safe — and buying a gun might help them sleep at night.
Pidgeon said at least 25% of his recent customers have been first-time gun owners. He said women, especially, have been coming in for the first time, usually looking to buy a handgun.
But as far as overall gun sales go, LaCroix said there’s a clear winner.
“The biggest sale was the AR. Usually any election in the last few years has been that way,” he said. “The ARs go up.”
But on that front, Pidgeon said his sales have been unique. Unlike almost every other dealer across Vermont, he has had ammo in stock — and people have been driving for hours from across New England to stock up.
“It’s because I had put away a tremendous inventory,” he said. “I’ve been in business 61 years, I’m probably the oldest gun dealer in the state of Vermont now. And I’ve always had a tremendous stock.
“Two years ago, I had at least $1 million in inventory, but now, I’m selling just tons of it.”
