shares of smith  wesson brands inc rallied again friday as betterthanexpected earnings and a dividend hike followed a decision by the supreme court of the united states to strike down a new york guncontrol provision the gun maker’s stock swbi jumped 146 in afternoon trading after running up 96 on thursday the twoday climb of 256 came after the stock closed wednesday at 1310 the lowest price since june 2020 meanwhile shares of fellow firearms company sturm ruger  co inc rgr have bounced 75 in two days after closing wednesday at an 18month low in a postearnings conference call with analysts lake street capital’s mark smith asked for a comment about the supreme court ruling which said the new york law that forbids people from obtaining a permit to carry a handgun publicly unless a special need is demonstrated violated the us constitution’s second and fourteenth amendments “so broadly on the ruling i mean it simply clarifies that responsible lawabiding citizens don’t need to ask the government’s permission to exercise their constitutional rights” chief executive officer mark smith said according to a factset transcript “and insofar as impact to concealed carry in our products concealed carry is a pretty big portion of our market we expect that as it expands the access of those products to those lawabiding citizens that they’ll have a positive impact on us” ceo smith said it was “probably too early” to tell what that impact on earnings might be separately the company reported late thursday net income for the fiscal fourth quarter to april 30 of 361 million or 79 cents a share compared with 892 million or 170 a share in the same quarter a year ago excluding nonrecurring items adjusted earnings per share of 82 cents beat the factset consensus of 57 cents revenue fell 44 to 1813 million but was above the factset consensus of 168 million the company said average selling prices rose by nearly 12 while unit volumes were down about 50 from a year ago ceo smith said on the postearnings call that for the remainder of fiscal 2023 he expects market demand will continue to be down “significantly” from pandemicsurge levels of last year “while interest in the shooting sports remains healthy and we are encouraged to hear from our channel partners that many firsttime consumers are returning to purchase additional firearms with the offsetting impact of record inflationary pressures on the pocketbooks of mainstream american households we are anticipating that demand in the firearms market this year” will look a lot like in did in prepandemic calendar 2019 smith said separately the company said it was increasing its quarterly dividend by 25 to 10 cents a share from 8 cents a share the new dividend will be payable july 21 to shareholders of record on july 7 based on current stock prices the new annual dividend rate implies a dividend yield of 243 which compares with sturm ruger’s yield of 503 and the implied yield for the sp 500 index spx of 166 smith and wesson’s stock has now slipped 76 year to date and sturm ruger shares have eased 26 while the sp 500 has lost 183