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After Vegas Attack, Local Gun Sales Mixed

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Stocks for gun companies have risen following the deadly attack in Las Vegas – but that hasn’t necessarily translated into a flood of sales for local gun stores.

 

Tane Williams is manager of pawn shop Guns and Gold in Salt Lake. He says he has seen a change in business since the Vegas shooting, if modest.

“Yes, we have seen an uptick,” he says. “It’s only a slight uptick, but people get concerned that maybe their ability to procure firearms will be limited or diminished to some degree. So they get a little nervous about being able to make that acquisition.”

It’s a trend that’s become pretty common following mass shootings, or a change in political power in Washington.

The regulatory environment is still one of the biggest drivers for gun sales. But with a gun-friendly Republican administration and no indication Congress will make any movement on new gun laws, the industry is in a big slump.

“We have not seen, at least at our location here in Salt Lake City, an uptick in business over the last few days,” says Tyler Thompson, a manager at Impact Guns.

“This year as a whole has been much slower as an industry across the nation than the previous eight years," he says.

He says although there is still a lot of what he calls “fear-mongering” surrounding shooting events, there’s less “panic-buying” among consumers.

 

Julia joined KUER in 2016 after a year reporting at the NPR member station in Reno, Nev. During her stint, she covered battleground politics, school overcrowding, and any story that would take her to the crystal blue shores of Lake Tahoe. Her work earned her two regional Edward R. Murrow awards. Originally from the mountains of Western North Carolina, Julia graduated from UNC-Chapel Hill in 2008 with a degree in journalism. She’s worked as both a print and radio reporter in several states and several countries — from the 2008 Beijing Olympics to Dakar, Senegal. Her curiosity about the American West led her to take a spontaneous, one-way road trip to the Great Basin, where she intends to continue preaching the gospel of community journalism, public radio and podcasting. In her spare time, you’ll find her hanging with her beagle Bodhi, taking pictures of her food and watching Patrick Swayze movies.
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