President Joe Biden signed the nation's most significant gun reform bill in decades into law... amid a surge in gun violence and several high-profile shootings. With these new restrictions now in place, how will the gun market fare, especially since gun sales have increased in recent years? Stephen Gutowski, founder of TheReload, joined Cheddar News to discuss the outlook on the gun industry in the U.S.
 


Opening Bell

The Future of the Gun Industry in the U.S. 

here to discuss is Stephen Gutowski, founder of the reload, Stephen, Welcome to the show. From what you can see, how do most gun owners feel about the policies that our president just signed into law a few days ago. Well, I think honestly, most are probably more concerned with the Supreme Court's ruling at this point. Um that's going to be more consequential long term, but uh, these are fairly um you know, it's a compromise bill, so I don't know how much backlash there's going to be because there aren't some of the pipe, the big ticket items like in an assault weapons ban or universal background checks included in here. So they've gone, you know, a different route that where republicans and democrats found some common ground. So it may not have as much political backlash in the gun community as as other options that would have. I do want to talk more about guns, but I want to go back to the scotus ruling from friday. What are your thoughts on that? I mean, that ruling is extremely consequential. You know, obviously in the immediate term, it strikes down may issue gun carry laws which are only in a handful of states. Currently, the Supreme Court identified six, but they are some of the largest states new york California massachusetts, You know, state deep blue states like that. And so about 25% of the population lives in those states. Um, and that that will be the most immediate impact. But the bigger long term impact is over how the court told lower courts to decide gun cases moving forward, which upends the way that they been doing it since the landmark decision in heller back in 2000 and eight. And so that's going to have a much wider impact than, than just the immediate gun carry case. Thank you for that because I know that's not why you're on the show, so I really appreciate you pivoting just a bit going back to guns. Do you think this new legislation will deter bad actors from actually purchasing guns? Is it going to make a difference here? It could in some areas, you know, certainly the boyfriend loopholes as your reporter alluded to earlier. It does seek to close that in the sense that it extends the current prohibition on domestic violence misdemeanors to people who have committed violence against their dating partner. Now, the law is was written extremely quickly. So the definition for dating partner is extremely vague and it's not exactly clear how that's gonna work out. And there were a couple of, uh, compromises, I guess thrown in there with there's a five year period where if you don't commit any further crimes after that, your records get expunged for the domestic violence misdemeanor against dating partners. I think the biggest impact on people being able to obtain guns will be from the inclusion of juvenile criminal records. So this bill, this law now that President biden has signed. It, uh, prohibits the sale of guns or an a to anyone who is, Has a juvenile criminal record that includes a felony or domestic violence misdemeanor or anyone who had been involuntarily committed after the age of 16. And so it's not clear because those records have, I mean, in most states been sealed, we don't have a count on how many people that's going to affect, but it'll probably be quite a lot of people. We know the gun lobbyist in our country. It's a powerful group. How do you expect the gun lobby to respond to this new legislation? Uh, you know, I don't I don't know that there's a lot that can be done at this point. You know, republicans were the ones who made this happen. So, I mean, you may see some court challenges now that the court has handed down this new standard that is more favorable to challenging gun laws. But, you know, these types of prohibitions are within the scope of what the Supreme Court has said. Our constitutional in the past. You know, restrictions on, uh, you know, people proven to be a danger or, or prohibitions like that are held to be presumptively constitutional. So it would be difficult to go after this. This law on that front. There may be some provisions like the juvenile, um, you know, inclusion that could be problematic from different points of view about, You know, basically, it kind of re works how the juvenile criminal justice system works because those records are now basically permanent, uh, at least in terms of gun sales. But, but, you know, overall it's probably, I don't see Congress really revisiting this anytime soon. Republicans are poised to take back control of Congress. Obviously, we don't know for sure. And there's been certainly a lot of developments politically this week, but, uh, it's unlikely to see them go back to the well on this anytime soon. And I think, you know, you've seen reporting from democrats indicating that's probably the case. Even as you know, this will be a while. Yeah, sure. And we know, gun sales typically rise after a mass shooting in our country. We see it almost every single time our gun companies worried about sales may be slipping after this registration after this legislation. And if not, are there fact, what's contributing to their positive outlook when it comes to gun sales? Yeah, I mean, honestly, gun sales are are commonly driven by fears of new restrictions on firearms. That's why they happen in the wake of a lot of mass shootings, because people assume they may be further restricted what they could buy. So they go out and buy the guns that they, that they want in fear that they might not be able to down the line. And so you'll probably see some of that effect from this, even though it doesn't restrict any class of gun necessarily. Um, but, you know, it also doesn't really restrict beyond the people. We just talked about. It doesn't restrict anyone else from buying guns. So it's probably not going to hurt the market. And if anything, it will probably increase the market just just because of that factor of concern of any gun gun control laws being put in place, The gun industry's messaging has been pretty consistent to this point. Their messages self defense and playing on fears of crime. Do you think that will be a viable marketing strategy for the gun industry moving forward? Yes, certainly. I mean, look, uh people want to be able to protect themselves, and for a lot of people that means buying a gun. And right now, you're seeing, unfortunately, a large increase in murder across the country, and that's likely to increase people's incentive to go out and buy guns for themselves, which will probably power the market to new highs in the coming years. Considering the Supreme Court's decision last week, and this new federal law, will it be meaning meaningful e different living in a Red State or a Blue State in this country? Yeah, Yeah, I think it still will be uh certainly it won't be perhaps as different as it has been the last decade or so, um because some of these restrictions that that are relatively modern, you know, 20th century and forward, will will likely see significant legal challenges and might not survive those now with the Supreme Court taking a more active role in, you know, dealing with gun legislature, gun litigation. And uh, so you'll see a little more parity, You know, people will actually be able to get concealed carry permits in places like new york and California, whereas before, it was almost impossible for most average people to do that. Um, you might see assault weapons bans get knock down magazine limits. Things of that nature may be on the chopping block coming up here, because those are relatively modern restrictions and this new ruling cause a lot of those in the question. So it'll probably more parity than we've seen over the last several decades. At the very least. Such an important conversation. Stephen Gutowski, founder of the Reload. We always appreciate your time steven. Thank you so much.