New York Times: AR-15 Sales Have Slowed Because Everyone Now Has One

Scopes, suppressors, handgrips and muzzle brakes were once inconspicuous options associated with firearms in the United States, footnotes to the hardware that often makes headlines. But with store workers reporting lower than expected gun sales in an election year — firearms purchases usually spike in fear of new restrictions from incoming administrations — expensive accessories have been “keeping the door open,” as one retailer from coastal Maine said in late December.

Even the best-selling AR-15, which in the last two decades has become known as “America’s rifle,” is owned by so many Americans that it is no longer in such demand. “Everyone’s got them,” one brick-and-mortar retailer in Minnesota said of his sales this summer. A 2021 firearms survey conducted by a Georgetown University professor found that nearly 25 million people had owned an AR-15-style rifle.

Instead, the field of gun modifications and homemade kits has ballooned. More and more people are either building their own guns or outfitting them with accessories that cost far more than the firearms they’re attached to.

“Guns, especially for us, just kind of lure people in,” said Louis Reich, a sales representative who works for a major firearms distributor. At the start of the week Mr. Reich looks at Rooftop Defense’s website, where [Sol] Lehnerd’s inventory is updated in real time, to see what’s selling and what’s sold out. It helps him prepare orders to help Mr. Lehnerd restock.

“Accessories are where we make our money,” Mr. Reich said. The production of firearm suppressors, or silencers, some of which can cost more than twice as much as an AR-15-style rifle, skyrocketed by more than 9,000 percent between 2000 to 2021, according to data from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

— Thomas Gibbons-Neff in The New American Gun Store: Grips, Grenade Launchers and Ramen Noodles