(Headline USA) Gun sales in the deep blue state of Massachusetts, where firearm ownership rates have been historically low, skyrocketed in 2020 and 2021, according to a new report.
Cape Gun Works co-owner Toby Leary told local outlet WBUR that he’s had hundreds of new customers over the past couple of years who “haven’t fully grasped the idea of wanting to own a firearm for defensive purposes, but something brought them here.”
“They feel like they’ve been spurred to do it based on what they see, or their own personal feelings about the world,” Leary explained.
Many of them even told him that they didn’t like guns, Leary added, but fear drove them into his store.
An analysis of Massachusetts gun sales revealed citizens in the state bought nearly 276,000 firearms from 2020 through 2021. Sixty-four percent of those sales were for handguns, and 23% were for rifles.
“We tripled sales in 2020 from 2019,” Leary said, calling the pandemic a “banner, landmark” year.
Historically, Massachusetts has had one of the lowest gun ownership rates in the country, with just 14.7% of households owning at least one gun. But in 2021, gun sales were up by 57%.
A few other factors driving Massachusetts residents to invest in firearms are “emboldened criminals who face little deterrent in certain … cities,” “police departments that are stretched thin,” and “political uncertainty,” according to Fellow Cape Gun Works co-owner Brendon Bricklin.
“And of course the basic need we all have of preservation and protection of family,” he added.
Massachusetts isn’t the only blue state to experience a spike in firearm purchases. New York saw its firearm sales double in 2020.
“When the original COVID scare started in the beginning of March and people thought they might get laid off, at that point, we saw a huge surge. We sold out of almost everything we had in the store,” Cliff Pfleger, who owns a gun shop on Long Island, said at the time.
“We had lines continuously, even though we didn’t have things to sell.”
