The Obama Effect on firearms sales was well known. After the controller-in-chief retired to his permanent subversion vacation, the firearms industry ran into trouble. So did second amendment groups.
But it was only a matter of time until the Ban Everything lobby turned everything around. And boy did it.
Since the February 14 massacre in Parkland, Florida, prompted a movement of student activists calling for restrictions on gun sales and boycotts of companies doing business with gun makers, Sturm Ruger & Company's stock has rallied 12 percent, while rival American Outdoor Brands, the maker of Smith & Wesson, has jumped 4 percent.
U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation background checks in March hit over 1.5 million, according to data supplied by the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
Background checks are a strong proxy for monthly gun sales, whose figures manufacturers do not release publicly.
Last month's background checks were the highest for any March since at least 2000, although they barely exceeded background checks in March 2013, when Democrats in Washington tried - and ultimately failed - to pass legislation banning assault-style weapons in the wake of a mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
The NRA is doing quite well too.
The National Rifle Association's Political Victory Fund raised $2.4 million from March 1 to March 31, the group's first full month of political fundraising since the nation's deadliest high school shooting on Valentine's Day, according to filings submitted to the Federal Elections Commission. The total is $1.5 million more than the organization raised during the same time period in 2017, when it took in $884,000 in donations, and $1.6 million more than it raised in February 2018.
The $2.4 million haul is the most money raised by the NRA's political arm in one month since June 2003, the last month when electronic federal records were readily available.
When you try to take away people's civil rights, they fight back.