This particular case of assigning blame is probably different from ones you’ve seen in the past, however. Normally we’d hear about Washington passing some new regulation which harms businesses. In this case, they’re saying that President Trump is such a fan of protecting Second Amendment rights that people aren’t in as much of a rush to run out and buy firearms because, unlike during Obama’s tenure, they’re not worried that the government will be coming to take them away.

At most I suppose we could call this the Reverse Trump Effect. The President is a big supporter of not just gun rights, but gun manufacturers as well. The one thing he can’t do is force people to go out and buy the product. With the perceived threat to gun ownership in the rearview mirror for now, shoppers are probably finding other things to spend their new tax break money on.

Of course, that perception of the danger to gun ownership based on who is in the Oval Office has always been somewhat overblown. The Democrats still don’t have enough seats to pass any serious gun restrictions even if they still had the White House. The real danger lies in state-level regulations. Replacing Obama with Trump hasn’t done a thing to loosen the vulture-like grip of the New York Safe Act, one of the worst gun laws in the country and, ironically, passed in the same state that Remington traditionally called home. (I used to ride past their factory on my bicycle as a kid on a regular basis.)