Local

New gun sales slowing down in Pennsylvania as pandemic wanes

PITTSBURGH — While local gun stores are still seeing steady foot traffic and online purchasing, sales are overall slowing down as the pandemic wanes.

“There’s no big rush in the store right now,” said Bryon Barker, General Store Manager at John Brown’s Armory.

“The panic-buying has calmed down,” said Nick Parish, Online Sales Manager. “We’re seeing a lot more people coming in for more normal purchases.”

Channel 11 visited the Rochester store back in early 2021, as sales were booming.

There and elsewhere, customers were flocking to purchase guns, as the pandemic prompted fear and uncertainty.

“The pandemic made the doomsday preppers come out in a full force,” said Rick Genser, President at A-Advantage Firearms in Shaler.

“COVID was the biggest thing,” Barker said. “COVID and the riots. The riots were a big factor in the gun sales. When that started happening, the place was full.”

The big influx locally and nationwide included many first-time gun buyers.

Prior to the pandemic, in 2019, there were an estimated 2.4 million new firearm owners.

According to industry data, that number shot up to 8.4 million in 2020, and remained high at 5.4 million in 2021.

“Even the little old ladies and the school teachers, people who don’t care for firearms, they were buying firearms,” Genser said.

But now, a slowdown is being seen not only locally but across Pennsylvania.

According to Pennsylvania State Police, there were 321,666 background checks during the first quarter of 2022, which is a 25% decrease from the first quarter of 2021.

“We have slowed down, but these first three or four months of the year are always slow. They usually resume. I don’t think they’re going to resume this year,” Genser predicted, noting inflation as a factor.

Barker agrees. Previously, people were spending their stimulus checks on firearms, he said. But now, people are strapped for cash.

“I think people don’t have the money for guns, they’d rather spend it on food and fuel.”

But, sales tend to ebb and flow, according to all of the industry experts we interviewed.

“It comes in waves,” Barker said.

He, and the others we spoke to, report that current events can have a significant impact on sales.

Whenever talk of banning guns becomes front and center, sales reportedly increase.

At both stores, sales reportedly skyrocketed in the wake of the Sandy Hook Massacre.

“We couldn’t even buy guns,” Genser said.

He predicts that if we do in fact see booming sales this year, the purchases could be connected to the ongoing attack on Ukraine.

“[Customers] feel they need to have something in their house, in case something happens here,” he said.

“Anything in the news, anything bad in the news, people get scared,” Barker said. “They come down and buy a gun.”