A gunman killed 21 people at Robb Middle School on Tuesday. On Wednesday, the share prices of gun manufacturers surged.
On the heels of Tuesday’s deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, Fortune Magazine reports the share price of Sturm, Ruger & Company increased as much as 5.8%, while the share price of Smith & Wesson increased by as much as 10%.
It is not unusual to see a spike in the share prices of weapons manufacturers after a mass shooting, the magazine reports.
Investors anticipate that fears of coming regulation will cause customers to rush out and purchase firearms and ammunition.
Stock prices of gun manufacturers also skyrocketed in 2019 after a single weekend when two separate mass shootings resulted in the deaths of 31 people in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas.
Pew Research shows gun sales reached an all-time high in 2020. Gun violence killed about 20,000 individuals, excluding suicides, in 2020 in the United States alone.
According to consulting group Small Arms Analytics, about 23 million firearms were purchased in 2020.
It is unknown if gun control legislation will follow this most recent incident.