Artificial Intelligence Towing Sputtering Economy; Tariffs Drive Gun Sales Down

Steve Jurrens reports that South Dakota is among 22 states with stagnant economies and that the only thing saving the nation from economic shrinkage is robot brains:

Jared McEntaffer, Chief Economist and CEO at the Dakota Institute for Business and Economic Analysis, addressed the Watertown Development Company (WDC) annual meeting to provide an analysis of the current business cycle, noting uneven growth across sectors and geographies, and persistent inflationary pressure.

…Citing a recent analysis, he noted that 22 states, including South Dakota, were in recession or close to it over the past 12 to 18 months, indicating “choppy level economic performance at the state level.”

…McEntaffer highlighted that the only significant source of growth in the U.S. economy during the first half of 2025 was the boom in AI and data centers. When stripping out fixed investment in technology, real GDP growth for the first half of the year was close to zero [Steve Jurrens, “Economist Highlights Asymmetric Growth and Persistent Inflation Challenges for U.S. and South Dakota Economies,” Northeast Radio SD, 2025.10.19].

Not helping the robots boost our economy: gun stores, where sales are slumping—

Firearm retailers across the nation have watched business tumble steadily for nearly five years straight — down more than 35 percent from a record high in 2020, when pandemic lockdowns and widespread social unrest drove unprecedented crowds to their stores. A contraction after the spike was inevitable, and the numbers remain stronger than before the pandemic. But that reality has offered little comfort to retailers who have endured years of shrinkage and now face the prospect of a second “Trump Slump” — a calamitous dip in demand that befell the gun industry after President Donald Trump’s 2016 election calmed fears of tighter gun control.

From January to September, gun sales in 23 states and Puerto Rico dropped more than 4 percent compared with the same nine-month period in 2024, according to background check data from the FBI. Background checks provide a commonly used approximation of gun sales, as they must be performed for most gun purchases at federally licensed retailers. In Michigan, Oregon, New Mexico, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts, background check totals have plummeted by double digit percentages year over year. This summer has been one of the slowest in recent memory, prompting fears of an industrywide recession, owners and store managers told The Trace [Champe Barton, “Gun Stores Are Struggling Under Trump,” The Trace, 2025.10.10].

Evidently MAGAts aren’t running out to stock up on guns, and we liberals aren’t rushing to replace that demand with our own frenzied anti-fascist gun purchases. But tariffs rear their ugly head in the gun recession, too:

Several national headwinds have converged to drive the decline. Inflation has left many would-be buyers with little discretionary income. The Trump administration’s tariffs on metals and other imported goods have raised the price of ammunition and, to a lesser extent, the price of some foreign-made guns. In Livonia, a Detroit suburb, Potter said the tariffs have roiled the local economy. “A lot of the manufacturing jobs in this area are linked to the auto industry, so when there are layoffs, we see a decrease in sales,” he said. “This is probably the worst summer I can remember” [Barton, 2025.10.10].

Dang—sounds like if we want to get back to a growing economy, including more gun sales, we better get back to electing free-trade Democrats… and keep building robots!

Related Reading: Trump’s popping the gun bubble, but there’s all sorts of chatter that A.I. is a bubble, too.