At six-month anniversary of Newtown shooting, guns manufacturer reports its sales are up 43% over last year

This article is more than 7 years old

This article is more than 7 years old

Gun sales at Smith & Wesson have hit an all-time high during a year marked by some of the most horrific acts of gun violence in US history.

The arms manufacturer reported this week that sales for the year ending 30 April had hit a record $588m, a 43% year-on-year rise.

Smith & Wesson said fourth-quarter sales were up 38% year-on-year to $179m. It told investors it expects its first-quarter financial results to top market expectations and is planning to buy back $100m of its shares.

US gun sales are hard to track, but one of the most reliable figures comes from the number of requests for background checks, an FBI-required precursor to obtaining a gun licence.

Nine of the 10 days with the most daily requests for background checks ever recorded occurred after December's massacre at Sandy Hook elementary school. The week after set a new record for background checks. CBS Connecticut reported that permit applications in Newtown itself more than doubled in the three months following the killings.

Retailers also reported a spike in gun sales after James Holmes shot dead 12 people and injured 58 at a screening of the Dark Knight Rises in a Colorado cinema in July. Sales soared again after Barack Obama's re-election in November as buyers feared a clampdown on sales, especially on assault weapons.

Smith & Wesson will update investors on sales on 25 June. Its shares rose on the announcement of the buybacks to a three-month high of just under $10.

But the US's spate of gun violence has also triggered a backlash among some investors. California State Teachers' Retirement System (CalSTRS), a $154bn pension fund, announced last year it would sell off its holding in Freedom Group, manufacturer of the rifle used in the Newtown shooting.

Cerberus Capital Management, the private equity group, also announced it was selling its interest in Freedom Group. "It is apparent that the Sandy Hook tragedy was a watershed event that has raised the national debate on gun control to an unprecedented level," Cerberus said in a statement last December.

Four months later it emerged that Cerberus's billionaire founder Stephen Feinberg was considering making a bid for Freedom Group, which makes the Bushmaster rifles, one of which was used to kill 20 children and six adults at the school. The company has reportedly struggled to find another buyer.