Tennessee lawyer Brian Manookian says he never considered himself a gun enthusiast. He owns just one handgun and was raised in a gun-free home. But the firearms industry has proven so successful in recent years that he decided to give up practicing law and make guns his livelihood.

It's a decision that's put Manookian on track to earn four times what he made as a corporate health care attorney, a job that earned him six figures right out of law school, he said.

And he's far from alone. An analysis by The Associated Press of data tracking the health of the gun industry shows that President Barack Obama has presided over a heyday for guns.

Sales are on the rise, so much that some manufacturers cannot make enough fast enough. Major gun company stock prices are up. The number of federally licensed, retail gun dealers is increasing for the first time in nearly 20 years. The U.S. gun lobby is bursting with cash and political clout. Washington has expressed little interest in passing new gun laws, despite renewed calls to do so after recent deadly shootings in Colorado and Wisconsin.

Four years ago the gun lobby predicted Obama would be the "most anti-gun president in American history." Yet it is hard to find a single aspect of the gun world that isn't thriving.