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Gun demand rises in Chicago despite national drop-off under Trump

Demand for legal firearms in Chicago continues to grow even as the appetite nationally and in Illinois has fallen significantly in recent months — something gun vendors attribute to the election of President Donald Trump.

While gun sales nationwide appear to have dropped from the levels they reached during the Obama years — apparently driven in part by lessened concerns under Trump that access will be restricted — changes in state laws and Chicago’s crime wave have unleashed a pent-up demand for legal gun ownership in the area.

Gun suppliers have called former President Barack Obama their best salesman, because sales were driven by the belief of impending government regulations. Mass shootings in recent years, such as the massacre of children in Connecticut in 2012, prompted calls for greater gun control but also spikes in sales over fears for safety and concern over such restrictions.

As that fear has moderated with Trump’s election, so too have sales, some vendors say.

“We’re holding our own, but the whole firearm industry’s taken a little downturn,” said Tom Dorsch, director of operations for On Target Range & Tactical Training Center in Crystal Lake. “There’s not that imperative to run out and buy guns, because they’ll be there.”

Gun manufacturers typically do not release sales figures. But other measures — such as the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which those seeking to buy a gun from a federally licensed dealer must pass — can give some idea of demand.

Nationally, federal background checks grew to record levels during the Obama administration, more than doubling from about 13 million in 2008, to 27 million last year, according to FBI figures.

But the fever pitch of gun sales appears to have waned in recent months. Federal background checks registered high levels at the close of 2016, before dropping 11 percent during the first four months of 2017 compared to the same period last year.

In Illinois last year, officials performed about 1.9 million background checks, a big jump from 1.2 million in 2015. But the numbers dropped following the election, and are down 16 percent the first four months of this year.

Meanwhile, one subset of gun owners has grown steadily. Since Illinois became the last state to allow concealed carry licenses in 2013, the total number of licenses has risen from about 91,000 in 2014 to 220,000 last year.

In Chicago specifically, after the courts forced the city to drop its ban on handgun sales, ruling it unconstitutional — and as shootings have surged — the number of firearm owner identification applications doubled from about 19,600 in 2014 to nearly 39,000 last year, according to Illinois State Police, and is on pace to surpass that this year.

The city also saw an initial rush of about 8,600 concealed carry licenses in 2014, the first year they were issued. By last year, more than 22,000 had been issued to Chicago residents, and the pace also appears to be accelerating.

Gun advocates also say that since concealed carry was legalized, the public has seen that it has not generally led to more shootings or accidents, while many armed crimes are committed with illegal firearms.

“People are worried about protecting themselves in the Chicago area,” said Richard Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association. “People started seeing the value of a concealed carry license.”

Interest in legal handgun ownership has expanded among groups including women, minorities, and younger, urban residents, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

“Reports of our demise are greatly exaggerated,” foundation spokesman Larry Keane said. “The market is stabilizing. … We’re continuing to see sizable growth over the long term.”

Keane estimates that about 20 to 25 percent of gun customers are first-time buyers, many of whom want weapons not for sport or protection at home but simply to take advantage of open-carry or concealed-carry laws.

As one example of that growing interest, in the past year, the Union League Club of Chicago offered four concealed-carry classes, which are required by state law to obtain a permit to carry a gun in public.

The private club is perhaps better known for its involvement in civic and cultural affairs. But among its special-interest groups, which also include networking and Scotch whisky, is a Field and Stream outdoors group. The two-day concealed carry classes held 15 to 20 students each and offered fingerprinting for required criminal background checks and shooting lessons taught by off-duty Chicago police officers.

The club’s second vice president, Edward Cooper III, said it offers various educational opportunities. “While we have held the classes, this represents a small portion of our overall membership and we remain a ‘firearms prohibited’ location,” he said in a written statement.

More broadly, there are still no gun stores in Chicago, even though the courts struck down Chicago’s ban on handguns in 2010 and its ban on gun shops in 2014.

But as the number of shootings and homicides rose dramatically in Chicago last year, the demand for guns also rose in the suburbs. State police records show that the number of firearm owner ID cards issued in Cook and the collar counties increased 73 percent last year, and more than doubled this year from February to March.

Numerous gun shops operate in the suburbs, and new stores or shooting ranges have been proposed in Chicago, Elgin, Mundelein and Niles. In Willowbrook, some residents are opposing plans for a shooting range and bar, or “guntry club.”

In far northwest suburban Crystal Lake, On Target opened a gun shop and 20,000-square-foot range in 2012. On a recent afternoon, customer Staci Basso blasted away at a paper target with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle, hitting a tight circle inside a human figure.

Basso said she was motivated by self-defense. She and her husband, Chris, a retired insurance adjuster in Port Barrington, first took a gun safety class before buying a handgun.

“This is not a decision we made overnight,” Chris Basso said. “We mulled this over for months and months.”

Chris Basso, who lived near New York City and was working in Brooklyn on 9/11, also cited terrorism as one of his main reasons for learning to use a gun.

Once the couple started practicing shooting at a gun range, Staci Basso found it “addicting,” and they ended up buying two semi-automatic rifles, citing concern over proposed assault weapon bans.

Her family would “flip out” to learn that she owns guns, she said, but she’s run into a surprising number of people who also have guns.

“This is not something I ever thought that I would do,” she said. “There’s more fear now. How am I going to protect my family?”

Gun shop owners in the Chicago area say customers frequently cite such concerns as their motivation — though an analysis from the pro-gun control Violence Policy Center found that guns in the home are more likely to be fired in accidents, crimes or suicides than self-defense.

Colleen Daley, executive director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, said groups like the National Rifle Association have boosted gun sales for years by pushing the idea that Obama was “coming to take your guns away.”

“No policy we’ve ever supported would take away someone’s Second Amendment rights, unless they were not eligible to have them to begin with, such as people with mental illness or convicted criminals,” she said.

She called for Illinois to license gun dealers, as the federal government does, and for more rigorous background checks in other states to match Illinois’ rules.

Gun lobbyists and opponents are in a constant struggle over gun regulations, such as pending proposals to allow greater access to silencers, or suppressors, as advocates call them.

Daley blamed the gun industry for opposing measures that might reduce sales but could save lives, saying many gun owners support reasonable restrictions.

“A large majority of gun owners understand the awesome responsibility that comes with carrying a gun,” she said. “With over 700 gun deaths in Chicago last year, we need legislation to help save lives.”

As a sign of the new federal stance toward guns, Trump emphasized his pro-gun attitude to the NRA in a speech last month, telling members, “The eight-year assault on your Second Amendment freedoms has come to a crashing end. … You came through for me, and I am going to come through for you.”

rmccoppin@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @RobertMcCoppin