Relaxed rules are expected to push gun sales even higher
State’s permitless carry takes effect today for those over 21
Gun ownership exploded last year amid the pandemic, civil unrest and a divisive political environment. The state’s new permitless carry policy could trigger even more interest.
Once Texas’s “constitutional carry” law takes effect Wednesday, adults over 21 without criminal backgrounds can legally carry a gun in public without a permit, except in spaces where property owners forbid it. The bill passed earlier this year.
About 21 million people nationwide bought guns last year, up from 13.2 million in 2019, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation. More than one-third of last year’s buyers — 8 million — bought guns for the first time, it said. The organization hasn’t released sales data for this year, but federal data on firearm background checks for the first half of the year in Texas are down 8 percent from the same period last year, when gun ownership surged to new heights.
Now, as the state’s regulations are relaxed, retailers are projecting another bump in business.
Kyle Harrison, general manager of the Top Gun Range, said he expected to see
more people coming into his west Houston shop to buy guns and practice once they don’t have to wait six weeks, sometimes more, for a permit to carry. For some who come in with immediate safety concerns, he said, the permit process deters them from buying a handgun for their purse or holster.
“I do anticipate it’s going to have a positive impact for the number of shooters,” he said, “because we’re removing that barrier to entry.”
The soaring demand for guns and ammunition over the last year has ravaged the supply chain, forcing those in search of ammunition to line up outside of stores such as Academy Sports and Outdoors on delivery days to get it before they sold out.
Harrison said business has not let up at his shop, which also sells gun and ammo.
“We got super busy during COVID and then we got super, super busy during the civil unrest,” he said. “It just hasn’t gone back down. It has not stopped being busy.”
Mark Oliva, director of public affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, said the 18month span of surging gun sale volumes amounts to “uncharted territory” for the industry. Consumers keep coming, he said, and it suggests there’s still untapped demand.
“It tells me that appetite for exercising their Second Amendment rights has not been fully satisfied,” he said.
Still, with demand as high as it’s been, any uptick in interest that gun shops see this week will be difficult to separate from what’s already been happening in the guns and ammo market, he said.
“We’re seeing near-record levels that are continuing in 2021,” he said. “It could get lost in the rush of all that.”
The new bill won’t change gun stores’ operations, said Danny Clark, owner of Collectors Firearms on Westheimer. They can already sell to customers without permits; the new law allows those customers to carry publicly.
“It’s going to bring a whole lot of people into carrying who may not have been able to get a license,” Clark said. “Or they didn’t want to go through the trouble.”
The law takes effect just as the supply chain is starting to catch up with the 18-month onslaught, Harrison said. That will help him equip people new to carrying with the right handgun.