The stock market has been flat this year, but one sector has had a notably different experience in 2015.

If you’re into gun stocks, then Merry Christmas to you: Smith & Wesson US:SWHC has more than doubled in market value, while Sturm, Ruger & Co. RGR, -3.91% has jumped two-thirds. Both saw sharp gains last week in the wake of President Obama’s speech on terrorism, a good chunk of which was devoted to guns.

Which leads me to the following statement: Barack Obama is the best friend the American gun industry has ever had, and it is going to miss him when he’s gone.

With Obama as a lightning rod, the gun industry has profited like never before during his presidency.

By now, the pattern is familiar: A terrible shooting. A movie theater. A schoolroom full of children. A church. The president comes into the briefing room, and we scribble down his words of sorrow, of indignation — and pleas for Congress to do something. He goes back to the Oval Office. Gun sales surge. A few weeks, or even days later, the cycle repeats.

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Each time, the president reaffirms his support for the Second Amendment. One typical comment, from 2011: “The Second Amendment in this country is part of our Constitution, and the president of the United States is bound by our Constitution,” he said. “So I believe in the Second Amendment. It does provide for Americans the right to bear arms for their protection, for their safety, for hunting, for a wide range of uses.”

But the firearms industry doesn’t buy it. Manufacturers and the industry’s powerful lobbying arm, the National Rifle Association, are convinced that Obama’s secret strategy — even with just a year to go in his second and final term — will still emerge: to somehow take away the very guns he says we have a right to own. NRA chief Wayne LaPierre has warned for years that “lip service” to gun owners “is just part of a massive Obama conspiracy to deceive voters and hide his true intentions to destroy the Second Amendment during his second term.” And: “With no more elections to worry about, get busy dismantling and destroying our firearms’ freedom, erase the Second Amendment from the Bill of Rights, and excise it from the U.S. Constitution.”

Dismantle and destroy? With both the House and Senate dominated by Republicans, Obama would be lucky to get a resolution honoring the Girl Scouts through Congress. After the Sandy Hook school massacre in 2012, he couldn’t even get the Democratic-controlled Senate to support expanded background checks.

LaPierre knows this, of course, and her also knows that spreading fear about what Obama will do is good for business. Seven years of fear mongering has rallied the nation’s gun base, spurred huge sales, resulting in record profits for the industry.

How good for business? Some data from the pro-gun National Shooting Sports Foundation:

•When Obama was sworn in seven years ago the economic impact of the U.S. firearms industry was $19 billion. Last year: $42.9 billion.

•Full-time jobs in the gun industry have increased 58% to 263,000.

•More than 100 million guns have been sold in the United States since Obama was first elected.

•“Some people jokingly refer to [Obama] as the salesman of the year for the industry,” NSSF Senior Vice President Lawrence Keane once quipped.

No question: There’s big money to be made vilifying Obama, and the gun industry should thank its lucky stars that he’ll be around for another year. But, not to worry, another villain is waiting in the wings: Hillary Clinton.

“What is wrong with us, that we cannot stand up to the NRA and the gun lobby, and the gun manufacturers they represent?” Clinton raged after nine people were murdered at an Oregon community college in October. “This is not just tragic. We don’t just need to pray for people. We need to act, and we need to build a movement. It’s infuriating.” Her vow: “We’re going to take them on.” Them’s fightin’ words for the gun lobby, and if Clinton is elected 11 months from now, she’ll fight for expanded background checks for gun buys.

The NRA is gearing up. “She’s been coming after us for decades,” LaPierre warned this spring. “Hillary Clinton hasn’t met a gun-control bill that she couldn’t support.”

But the NRA has never met a gun-control advocate it couldn’t profit off of. If Clinton wins, the gun industry will continue to do well — as it has since Obama came to town. The real fear for the gun industry, if you can believe it, is that a pro-gun-rights advocate wins the White House next year. There won’t be anyone to scare the gun base, no one to rally around and raise money off of.

A friend? When it comes to guns, that’s bad for business.

See:Friend of shooters charged with providing guns used in San Bernardino attack