-By Warner Todd Huston
Famed American gun manufacturer Smith & Wesson has reported that earnings tripled in its most recent quarter. The company also said it looks forward to continued high sales into the next several quarters.
S&W reported this week that it earned $17.5 million in the quarter that ended on January 31. This is up from $5.4 million during the same quarter in 2012.
The company was projecting an earning of 23 cents per share but realized 26 cents as sales jumped 39 percent to $136.2 million.
The stock has gained 21 percent this year, but had fallen 2 percent in recent trading despite the growth in sales.
Industry analysts expected total earnings to be some $561 million and the company is projecting between $575 and $580 million.
S&W also noted that it has been at manufacturing capacity for the last year.
“The company continued to increase its production capacity during the third quarter and has operated its plant at essentially full capacity for the last four quarters. Despite these capacity increases, the company was unable to meet the ongoing demand across all of its firearm product lines.,” the company said in a March 5 press release.
The nation has seen an increased focus on gun control sponsored by President Obama and the Democrats since the murders at Sandy Hook school in Newtown, Connecticut late last year. The debate has been contentious with some calling President Obama the “firearms salesman of the year.”
S&W is one of the nation’s largest publicly traded firearms manufacturers second only to Ruger firearms.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, RightPundits.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDaily.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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