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Firearm sales up in 2011

Record number of background checks tied to politics, economy.

Evan English of Olde English Outfitters shows a Smith & Wesson revolver. The FBI has received a record number of requests for firearms background checks from Ohio retailers.

Ty Greenlees Evan English of Olde English Outfitters shows a Smith & Wesson revolver. The FBI has received a record number of requests for firearms background checks from Ohio retailers.

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By Cornelius Frolik, Staff Writer Updated 10:37 AM Wednesday, August 17, 2011

The record number of firearm background checks performed by the FBI this year signals that gun sales are on the rise in Ohio, an increase that gun-rights advocates and local store owners attribute largely to political and economic fears.

Meanwhile, even though the number of concealed handgun licenses issued to Miami Valley residents fell in 2010, firearm groups said 2009 was a record year and the popularity of carrying continues to trend upward.

During the first seven months of this year, the FBI conducted 247,847 background checks for firearm purchases at gun sellers in the state, up 17.7 percent from the same period in 2010, 9.2 percent from 2009 and 42.4 percent from 2008, according to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.

Background checks are one of the best measures of gun sales because federally licensed gun-sellers are required to perform them during a sale. Not all checks lead to purchases, but most do.

Andrew M. Molchan, director of the Professional Gun Retailers Association, said gun sales have steadily increased nationwide in the last six years following the U.S. Supreme Court overturning gun bans in major cities, such as Chicago and Washington, D.C., on the grounds they violated the Second Amendment.

Nationally, FBI background checks for gun sales increased to 14.4 million in 2010 from 8.5 million in 2003, according to the FBI reporting system.

But Molchan said gun sales have also significantly increased in recent years because of widespread apprehension about issues including the country’s financial and political turmoil.

“Since late 2007, there has been growing apprehension that’s still there,” he said. “If it’s there, firearm sales go up.”

Gun-rights advocates said the election of President Barack Obama alarmed a lot of people because they believe the Democratic party is committed to restricting the rights of gun owners.

“If you look at the statistics on background checks, most of the increase started right around the 2008 election,” said Ray, the co-owner of Gunsport in Centerville who declined to provide his last name. “It’s due to the political environment and what the government might try to do to take their guns away.”

In November 2008, the month Obama won the presidential election, the FBI performed 53,256 background checks for Ohio gun sellers, almost double the number from November 2007. That month set the record for background checks in the state and the nation.

Jim Irvine, chairman of the Buckeye Firearms Association, said Obama’s hostility toward gun rights has helped boost sales, but the country’s economic troubles also have many people worried that violence similar to the riots in England could erupt stateside.

“Unemployment is very high, underemployment is very high, job stagnation and salaries are issues, and you look around the world — Greece, Italy and England for the last couple of weeks — there is always turmoil going on, and there is a growing feeling that we are going to have civil unrest in this country,” Irvine said. “People want to be prepared.”

But Evan English, president of Olde English Outfitters in Tipp City, said while he believes that the fear of new gun restrictions may have originally led to a surge in sales, purchases continue to climb because of interest in shooting sports.

“With three indoor ranges in the Dayton area, there are just more places for people actually to participate in the sport,” he said. “We are seeing a growth in the industry that may have been spurred by fear, but now it’s just an enjoyable recreation.”

Some firearm groups said many residents who never before owned guns have become interested in ownership because of lawmakers relaxing the state’s concealed handgun regulations, including the new law that allows licensed individuals to carry firearms into establishments that serve alcohol.

In 2010, the state issued 5,278 concealed handgun licenses to residents in Montgomery, Miami, Greene, Butler and Warren counties, according to the Ohio Attorney General’s office.

Although the licenses issued last year were down 24 percent from 2009, 2010 still had the second highest number of licenses issued since the concealed carry law took effect in 2004, according to the Ohio Attorney General’s office.

The state only issued 4,379 licenses to residents in the five-county region in 2008 and 3,334 in 2007.

“If you look at the concealed carry licensure over the seven-year period since (licenses have) been available in Ohio, it’s been a straight line up,” said Philip Mulivor, coordinator for Ohioans for Concealed Carry. “I think the availability of concealed carry accounts for a significant number of handgun purchases.”

But gun-control supporters said an increase in gun sales does not mean more people are buying guns, but instead, existing gun owners are simply buying more guns.

“After being sold a lot of rhetoric and fear from the gun lobby about government taking their guns away and the need for carrying guns in public places, current gun owners must be making the purchases because overall gun purchases are declining,” said Toby Hoover, executive director of the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence.

The percentage of U.S. households that own a gun was 32.3 percent in 2010, down from 34.3 percent in 2000 and 45.8 percent in 1990, according to the Violence Policy Center, a gun-control group based in Washington, D.C.

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-0749 or cfrolik@DaytonDailyNews.com.