East Texas businesses see increase in gun sales, training due to current events
“We are always expecting a dip in the summertime, but with the recent events some people are scared and they are coming in. What we have seen is more and more people buying guns for defense instead of hunting. Here in the next few months, we will see an increase in hunting rifles being sold with deer season and the fall coming, but as of right now we have seen an increase in people buying handguns, defense shotguns, AR’s and so forth, to defend themselves and to those that they love,” he said.
Besides the gun sales going up, Ray Barron, owner and director of operations for Freedom Defense Training, also said there has been a 100% increase in enrollment of gun courses, especially beginner sessions.
“We’ve seen probably more new gun owners in the last few years than we have in probably the last 10 years of being open for business. I think around 2019 to 2020, especially with a lot of the violence that erupted around our country, a lot more people are aware now about personal safety than they had been in the past,” he said. “There has definitely been an increase in that and there’s been an extensive increase in females wanting to obtain licenses and training, that’s probably tripled in the last few years.”
Barron also mentioned that the course with the most increase in enrollment has been the advanced level courses for licensed individuals who seek to use it for protection in their household, out in public, or protection of families.
Another popular training course has recently been the training courses for school districts, said Barron.