Gun store owners report consumers have been using President Joe Biden’s stimulus money to buy firearms.
The details: Gun sales surged in March 2021, breaking records for the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System and other industry benchmarking statistics.
“We … saw a lot of transactions of around $1,400 starting on March 17, so it appears many people are using their stimulus money to buy guns,” Justin Anderson, marketing director of Hyatt Guns in Charlotte, North Carolina, told the Washington Examiner.
“Stimulus check equals gun money,” Brandon Wexler, owner of Wex Gunworks in Delray Beach, Florida, told Forbes.
Anderson mentioned that AR-15s, a style of gun targeted by Biden’s proposed gun control measures, are especially popular, a sentiment echoed to Forbes by Towers Armory owner Al Tawil in Oregon, Ohio.
- “They’ve got the extra money and people go indulge themselves with something they can’t normally afford,” he said. “Some people want a car. Some people want a gun.”
Mo’ money: Biden signed a $1.9 trillion COVID stimulus bill into law on March 11.
- The massive spending package included $1,400 checks for qualifying citizens.
- The Democrat faced backlash from the right for fiscal irresponsibility, but the left wing of his own party criticized the checks as too small.
