GUN STOCKS UP

After mass shooting in Las Vegas, firearm makers see share prices on the rise,

Stock prices for firearm companies rose this week after a gunman killed dozens of people in Las Vegas, an apparent continuation of a morbid trend linked to mass shootings.

But investors were more muted than they had been in recent years, a sign of Wall Street’s increasing skepticism about how much influence mass shootings can exert on gun control legislation, especially in a Donald Trump administration. Although the 2016 presidential election eased concerns among gun advocates about tighter rules, gun companies have struggled since the vote, with falling sales and excess inventory.

The shooting on Sunday was the deadliest in modern American history, with at least 59 people dead and more than 520 injured. The tragedy drew calls for gun control, as such massacres have in the past.

The prospect of tighter gun rules often leads consumers to stockpile firearms. Wall Street, sensing a sales upswing, piles into gun manufacturer and retailer stocks.

This time, however, its reaction seemed more tepid than it was after previous major shootings. On Monday, shares in Sturm, Ruger & Co., the Southport, Conn., maker of Ruger handguns and rifles, rose 3.5 per cent, then an additional 2.1 per cent on Tuesday. Last year, the day after a gunman killed 49 people at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., on June 12, 2016, the gunmaker’s stock price swung up 8.5 per cent. And it eventually rose 10 per cent in the days after two attackers killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., on Dec. 2, 2015. Stock movements at American Outdoor Brands, the Springfield, Mass., company that owns Smith & Wesson, were similar. The price was up 3.2 per cent on Monday and 2.4 per cent on Tuesday, compared with increases of 6.8 per cent after the Orlando shooting and 11.5 per cent after the San Bernardino attack. In previous years, stock prices for firearms companies sometimes fell after mass shootings, such as the December 2012 killings in Newtown, Conn.

Trump’s perceived ambivalence toward gun control could be tamping down firearms sales, analysts said. Trump’s candidacy was endorsed by the National Rifle Association, and he has declared himself a “true friend and champion” of gun owners. On Tuesday, he said, “We will be talking about gun laws as time goes by,” but offered no specifics.