By , June 27, 2015
A white man sat in a historic black church in Charleston, S.C., on June 17 and then proceeded to gun down nine people in a Bible study group. That mass murder has prompted national soul-searching on racism and renewed calls for stricter national gun control regulations.
We don’t know what all the ramifications will be — already there has been an unanticipated rush to remove Confederate symbols from government property and stores — but history suggests one thing: There is a very good chance that sales of guns and ammunition will surge and that shares of publicly traded gun companies will, ultimately, rise.
It has happened before.
On Dec. 14, 2012, a gunman walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., and slaughtered 20 children and six staff members. As the nation grieved, President Obama pushed for tighter gun control laws. Public pension funds began to divest themselves of their gun company investments. There were calls for individual investors to do the same, and there was extensive coverage of gun control efforts.
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Rough estimates of gun sales, derived from federal background checks.
2010: 9,436,182
2011: 10,791,275
2012: 13,780,285
2013: 14,796,872
2014: 13,090,383
Source: National Shooting Sports Foundation