By Evan Fallor and Reece Alvarez
While many children will receive toy guns as gifts this holiday season, many adults will be giving or receiving real firearms after another grim season of mass murder.
In the wake of a series of mass shottings this fall, gun sales are skyrocketing nationwide and in Westchester and Fairfield counties, according to national statistics and gun shop owners in the region.
At Blueline Tactical Supply in Elmsford, the general manager, who declined to give his last name, said his store is no exception to the national trend. Ammunition and supply sales have spiked since both the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris and the Dec. 2 shooting attack in San Bernardino, Calif., that left 14 people dead. His store”™s bimonthly five-hour pistol license classes have doubled and now up to roughly 35 people per class, said the general manager, who asked to be identified only as Angelo.
“Oh, it”™s been extremely busy,” he said. “During the holiday season it usually gets busier, but especially so this year with what”™s been happening around the country and around the world. The shittier the world is, the bigger our sales are.”
Surge in background checks
Statistics back up his observations. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, November saw the fifth highest number of firearm background checks completed through the FBI”™s National Instant Criminal Background Check System. More than 2.2 million checks were completed, bringing the 2015 total to 19.8 million, which is on pace to break the agency”™s record high of more than 21 million checks in 2013.
The past three Decembers have each seen more than 2 million background checks completed, a sharp rise from most other months during those calendar years. Though those numbers do not represent the actual number of firearms sold, the background check is one of the first requirements to owning one. Apparently many Americans included weapons on their holiday shopping lists.
At Blueline in Elmsford, most gun purchases are for self- defense purposes, Angelo said. But recently some customers have given other reasons for their buys. “People are telling them they can”™t have guns,” he said. “They”™re trying to prove that they can.”
- Herb Furhman teaches a gun permit class in New Milford.
John Roger, owner of The Jolly Roger Firearms weapon and ammunition shop in New Milford, said he has seen a small increase in firearms purchases at his Connecticut store following high-profile mass shooting incidents. He attributed the surges to preemptive buying in advance of expected anti-gun legislation rather than concerns for safety.
“I didn”™t really see anything after Paris and things like Oregon and California. It is hard to tell,” he said, referring to the less publicized Oct. 1 shooting at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore., that left nine people dead. “After Newtown there was a big one. Everybody knew the state was going to take some immediate steps (to restrict gun sales) and tried to beat that.”
“We used to say Obama is the best gun salesman there is,” Roger added.
He cited Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy”™s recent proposal to restrict the sale of guns for individuals listed on the federal no-fly list as a particular example of firearms legislation spurring an increase in weapons sales.
Several other gun shop owners and managers in Westchester and Fairfield counties declined to comment for this story.
In January 2013, the first full month following the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, 19,212 firearms were purchased in Connecticut, nearly double the total sales for any month in the last three years, according to the Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection. The Dec. 14, 2012 mass murder in Newtown was followed by the four highest months on record for gun sales in the state.
In total, 145,547 firearms were sold in Connecticut in 2013, well above the 115,427 sold last year and the 112,898 sold through November this year. In November, the month of the terrorist attacks in Paris that left 130 victims and seven terrorists dead, 11,377 firearms were sold in Connecticut, the highest monthly total in 2015.
Demand up for handgun training Â
At the HF LearnSafety Firearms Training Center in New Milford, owner Herb Furhman said the number of men and women seeking permits required to obtain firearms rises after high-profile shooting events. “Every time there is a massacre, you see people”™s interest in wanting to defend themselves increase,” he said.
Furhman, a Connecticut Police Academy instructor and retired law enforcement officer, leads training courses for southern Connecticut and New York residents in how to properly handle, store and fire a handgun. “The interest and momentum is and continues to be significant,” he said. “My class for January 2 is already filled up and now I have another class for January as well.”
“It is a fair reaction,” he said. “People are concerned with the economy; they are concerned with protecting themselves, their homes, their individuals.”
Investors shy from gun industryÂ
A growing number of investors, however, are choosing not to invest in the Firearms industry, said Nicole Turosky Smith, founder and CEO of GreenWell Financial in Danbury.
One of Connecticut”™s first benefit corporations, the investment advisory firm focuses on what it terms “sustainable and responsible” investing. In business since June, Turosky founded the firm to fill a need she saw for investors wishing to participate in that kind of investing program in Fairfield County.
GreenWell Financial refuses to invest in the firearms industry for clients. “The reason is extremely simple,” Turosky said. “My firm firmly believes it is absolutely possible to earn a competitive return without profiting from violence.”
“Over the past several years, the growth of this type of investing has been exponential,” she said. “It is absolutely a growing trend and I think it is here to stay for a long time.”
The third generation of a military family, Turosky served in the Connecticut National Guard and is experienced with firearms. She recognizes their sporting and hunting uses, but ultimately agrees with her clients”™ perspective on the weapons.
“Guns are made to kill, let”™s get real,” she said. “Most folks that come to me that want to invest sustainably and socially responsibly don”™t even know what they have (in investments). When I go through their holdings and put on paper what they own, most people are shocked. They are a little bit embarrassed that they are invested in these industries.”
On Dec. 22, Connecticut”™s gun industry was shaken when Mark Malkowski, president of New Britain rifle manufacturer Stag Arms LLC, pleaded guilty to possessing an unregistered machine gun. His arrest was the result of a state Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives investigation. Malkowski was forced to sell the company and is barred for life from the industry.
Toy gun retailers targetedÂ
In New York, state Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman this year launched an investigation of the toy gun industry after a Cleveland police officer in November last year mistook a toy gun for a real qweapon and shot dead a 12-year-olfd boy.
Ahead of the holiday shopping season, his office announced settlement agreements with 30 online retailers that sold more than 5,000 illegal toy guns to suburban New York consumers.
New York law requires the toys to be either brightly colored or have colored striping down the barrel to make clearer to law enforcement. Those illegal toy products targeted in the state investigation were sold by retailers, including Walmart, KMart, Amazon and Sears.
“When toy guns are mistaken for real guns, there can be tragic consequences,” Schneiderman said.
