Smith and Wesson sales hit all time high but gun crime continues to decrease ?

On April 29th 2012 Smith and Wesson reported a 20.3% increase in revenue from $342M in 2011 to 411M in 2012. The Guardian and other newspapers are also reporting that Smith and Wesson this year saw their revenue for the financial year already increase to $588M. See the graph below which shows the revenue for Smith and Wesson over the past 4 years.

source : Google Finance

However increasing gun sales in the US does not mean an increase in gun crime, when you take a look at the statistics they show that deaths caused by gun crime is actually decreasing year on year. Even though some of the mainstream media are calling for a partial gun ban in the US and also reporting on the disasters of Colorado and Sandy Hook, however they do not add as much coverage to the decreasing gun crime numbers.

These statistics probe the question that does more guns mean less gun crime?, This is because in a society where there is more guns, criminals are less likely to commit gun crime as ordinary citizens can arm and protect themselves against the criminals.

Smith and Wesson also saw a sales spike when the shooting in Colorado was reported, this suggests that more people are buying guns in order to protect themselves if a similar disaster where to happen again. Another spike was also seen when President Obama was re-elected as buyers feared that the president was going to clampdown on firearms.

The graph below shows that homicides caused by firearms has decreased massively since 1993. This graph also shows that all firearm deaths are decreasing and the slight increase in the past five years is probably due to the increase in suicides caused by firearms. 

In order to truly factor in the massive surge in gun sales, next year's crime statistics will be vital and they will show truly whether more guns means less gun homicides. I don’t believe that having more guns will stop incidents such as Sandy hook from happening again but I do believe more guns will decrease gun crime overall. I think that the answer lies in education and America needs to introduce new programmes and educate its citizens on gun safety and how dangerous guns can be in the wrong hands.

Education is needed because guns don’t kill people its people that kill people, a gun is just an inanimate object and it takes an uneducated person to use it in the wrong way.


Daniel Butler

Sources: Yahoo Finance , Google Finance , Guardian and CDC's National Certificate for injury prevention and control web-based injury statistics.