2025 Industry Outlook

While most expected the surge of 2020 purchasing to drop immediately afterward, as it did in other buying increases, that didn’t happen. Instead, sales continue to post gradual declines in the nearly four years since, seeking a new normalization. 2019, which is often seen as the last “normal” year, may not be the new standard moving forward, as consumer and market characteristics have changed.

Let’s take a look at what happened in 2024 before we give our thoughts on 2025.

Background Checks

Coming out of a stronger-than-expected Q4 2023, sparked in part by fears over the October attack on Israel, 2024 began with a first-quarter decrease in NICS firearm background checks.¹ 

The 5% decline from first-quarter 2023 was a stronger start to the year than most expected. The typical summer slump brought background checks down 9% in the second quarter, lower than most anticipated with background checks for handguns continuing to decline more than long guns. 

Firearm background checks started increasing in July, as the looming presidential election brought more uncertainty with the attempted assassination of President-elect Trump, President Biden stepping down from re-election a week later and Vice President Kamala Harris announcing her campaign the same day. Subsequently, background checks increased 5% in the third quarter, leaving year-to-date background checks through October down 3.5% over the prior year. Handgun background checks declined 4.5% through October, as checks for long guns increased 1%. 

Background checks through October were down in all regions of the U.S., except for New England and West South Central, which had slight increases. Each has had states in the region that have changed restrictions — both positive (removing the need for a permit to purchase a firearm) and negative (restrictions on owning certain types of firearms) — that has driven these. 

The Pacific region was down the most (12%) after the surge in background checks last year driven by substantial restrictions. It’s important to note although year-to-date October background checks were down 3.5% over the prior year, they were still 17% higher than before the pandemic surge.

Imports

As of the end of September, firearm imports continued to decline with a decrease of 10% over the prior year. As expected, handguns led the decline (down 17%), followed by rifles (down 8%), while shotgun imports increased 13% over the prior year. Ammunition imports were up 9% YTD in September, and scope imports increased 11%. 

Many factors drive imports, including new product coming in for the start of 2025, demand for home- and self-protection approaching the election and its at-the-time unknown outcome — plus concerns about current wholesale and retail inventory — likely combined to drive the latest import trends. 

Point-Of-Sale Data

While background checks and imports can show one side of the picture, actual retail point-of-sale data from RetailBI tells what is happening at the independent dealer level. 

RetailBI, powered by Gearfire, captures sales data from Gearfire’s AXIS retail point-of-sale system, representing sales from more than 2,000 independent and e-commerce dealers across the U.S. 

Insights provided by RetailBI showed YTD October firearm sales down almost 13% over 2023, a steeper decline than seen in NICS background checks. YTD October ammunition retail sales were down 5% over 2023 as reported in RetailBI. Retail inventory continued to be high through the year, but also declined as retailers worked to align their inventory and selections. 

Through the end of October, retail firearms inventory decreased 8% over the prior year, and ammunition inventory increased 9%. Although inventories remained much higher than pre-pandemic years, the overall sales levels continue to be higher than pre-pandemic as well.

For the most part, distributor and retailer inventory is “clean,” as the pandemic surge flushed inventories of old or slow-moving products throughout the channel. 

The Consumer Perspective

Of course, the main driver of the market is the consumer, and to best understand the market and where it is headed, we need to understand the consumer. How they perceive the world around them is what drives them to purchase or not. 

Economic pressures continued to moderate through 2024. Even so, it’s important to remember consumers have essentially experienced 10 years of inflation in less than four years. Although prices are not rising as fast as they were, they’re still significantly higher than they were just four short years ago, remaining fresh in consumer memory. 

Inflation is still suppressing sales, though maybe not to levels seen in early 2024.

According to Southwick Associates’ consumer-tracking study, at the end of Q3 2024, inflation was still the top reason cited for purchasing fewer firearms, followed by changes in personal income. Inflation was also the top cited reason for purchasing less ammunition in Q3 2024, followed by availability. Even if many ammunition shelves seem full, consumers still perceive availability issues in some cases at the time of this writing.

On the flip side, consumers cited safety concerns, potential firearm restrictions and domestic politics as the top factors causing them to purchase more firearms. The 2024 presidential election created big unknowns as to how consumers might react depending on who won. 

At the time of this writing — one week past the election — it is still too early to determine how firearm consumers will react with both sides of Congress and the White House being in Republican control. Past experience indicates there will be less concern regarding new federal firearm restrictions, which typically lowers short-term consumer demand. State and local issues potentially impacting the ability to purchase firearms will still encourage sales in some areas.

Southwick’s 2025 Outlook

The outlook we provided in the January 2024 issue of SI forecasted NICS background checks would end the year between 2016 and 2017 levels, although this writing is prior to the end of the year, we still anticipate this to be true. 

As a result of the election, interest rate cuts and the inflation rate lowering, firearms consumers are likely to anticipate a better economy — which can boost sales. But expectations of less crime and a halt on federal firearm restrictions will likely cause a pullback in demand for firearms. 

Potential tariff increases will affect costs for raw materials and imported products, creating a new potential headwind for the industry to put greater pressure on manufacturers’ margins and consumer demand.

In past downturns, we’ve seen optics and accessories increase — as consumers found lesser-priced items to purchase without breaking the bank.

The general assumption is higher-income consumers drive sales of higher-priced products, when the reality is there are certainly lower-income consumers who understand the value in purchasing a higher-priced product that will serve them well for years. Accessories sales may do better in 2025 compared to firearms.

The pandemic surge and subsequent increase in crime and uncertainty have brought many new firearm purchasers into the market. These new customers are different than the “traditional” stale, pale, male to whom the market has been accustomed. More women, Black and Hispanic purchasers have entered the market, with the primary purpose for purchase being protection for 80% of the firearm purchasers in the past few years.

As an industry, we need to continue to welcome and engage these new customers. Recognizing family and friends are a key part of the purchase, and the trusted source for training for many new firearm purchasers, it’s still important to ensure we provide them with trusted resources they may not seek out on their own. These new consumers in turn introduce their friends — our new consumers — to firearms.

While the election and unified government bring a likely pause on federal firearm restrictions in the next few years, there will still be state-level firearm restrictions being considered and applied. These will continue to bring pockets of ups and downs to the market. As well, the euphoria for many surrounding the election and the anticipation of a better economy, may bring consumers who have been on the sidelines to purchase products. 

As these opportunities and potential drawbacks play out, we anticipate the firearms market to continue to “normalize” in 2025 — with anticipated NICS checks down 5%. This decline is slightly greater than seen so far in 2024, but we think election concerns boosted recent sales. No other singular event is expected in 2025 to boost sales. 

Unexpected political or international events can quickly change this expectation. As we noted last year, now is the time for true innovation to drive consumers’ interest to purchase.  

Read More of Shooting Industry’s January 2025 Issue Now