Gun Sales in State Drop Record 31% in 1995

Gun sales in California plunged by a record 31% last year, to the lowest level in 18 years, Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren reported Wednesday. It is the second yearly drop, but follows major increases after the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

Although explanations varied, Lungren suggested that the market for guns in California, one of the nation’s biggest consumers of firearms, may have bottomed out. “It is conceivable that 2.7 million gun sales in just the last five years has resulted in gun ownership for many if not most of those citizens who would wish to purchase firearms,” he said.

Gun manufacturers, however, said the report mirrors a national trend and simply follows a sales spurt in 1994. Gun control supporters, on the other hand, say it reflects increased consumer worries about buying guns.

No one knows for certain how many Californians own guns, but since 1987 the state has recorded the purchase or other transfer of about 3 million pistols and revolvers alone.

Department of Justice records show that sales of pistols and revolvers fell 33.3%, from 382,085 in 1994 to 254,626 last year. Sales of rifles and shotguns slowed from 217,587 to 157,042 last year, a 27.8% drop.

Sales of guns had increased to unprecedented levels in the aftermath of the 1992 Los Angeles riots. But purchases started tapering off in 1994 by 6.6%, before dropping so dramatically last year, Lungren said.

Lungren, a potential Republican candidate for governor in 1998, also cited continuing reductions in the state’s overall crime rate as giving citizens a “renewed confidence” in police.

“It cannot be entirely coincidental that gun sales began decreasing in 1994 and fell even faster in 1995,” Lungren said. He also credited tougher criminal laws and better police work in lowering the level of “fear and anxiety that sent Californians rushing to buy guns in record droves just two years ago.”

However, other analysts, including executives of the American Sports Shooting Council and Handgun Control Inc., offered their own theories for the tumble in gun sales.

Richard Feldman, executive director of the council, a national trade association of firearms manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and others, said he believes the steep decline in sales in California reflects similar reductions nationwide and may not be significant in the long run.

Feldman said that sales may have been artificially spiked in recent years when consumers rushed to beat the enactment of new federal gun controls, including the waiting period for handgun purchases imposed by the Brady Bill and the banning of various military-style assault weapons.

“There was a buying frenzy [nationally] in 1994,” Feldman said. “They were buying them in fear that you better get them now or you’ll never be able to get them. . . . It really hurt sales in 1995.”

He said he believes gun sales will stabilize in 1996.

But Sandy Cooney, western regional director of Handgun Control, said he believes reduced sales reflected the public’s support of “reasonable” controls, revulsion toward the “epidemic of gun violence” and renewed support of law enforcement.

“This is such a dramatic [decrease] in gun sales, you’ve got to believe that people are having a second thought and then walking away” from buying a gun, Cooney said.

Cooney claimed that in an attempt to rebuild sales of handguns, manufacturers are backing legislation in California and throughout the country that would make it easier for citizens to legally carry concealed firearms.

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California Gun Sales

Firearm purchases in the state dropped a record 31% last year, according to the attorney general’s office. Sales had risen to record levels after the 1992 Los Angeles riots but then began tapering off.

Sales in thousands

‘95: 411,668