The National Shooting Sports Federation reports that February 2011 sales have surged 13.6 percent over last Feb’s stats. That’s a leap in National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) enquiries from 848,036 to 963,746. OK, stat-heads, what gives?

All across the industry we’re hearing that sales are booming. ArmaLite’s added an hour at the end and the beginning of its production shifts. Smith & Wesson’s handgun sales are up a whacking great 47.9 percent for the third financial quarter, and still they don’t habe enough guns to go ’round. Gun stores are jammed.

As gun-grabbing fever’s only reared its ugly head in the last 36 hours, there’s some other dynamic at work. Austerity boredom? Falling prices (msrps are as soft as a Ritz Carlton pillow)? Liberalized CCW permitting process? All of the above?

Whatever. Happy days are here again for the firearms industry. And now that the ATF has stopped supplying drug cartels with weapons, the U.S. firearms industry can resume selling them weapons through official channels. Oh wait; they already are. Never mind.