OK, I haven't owned a S&W firearm since the Model 10 I had back when my department mandated a .38 Special revolver, the duty weapon back then for nearly every law enforcement agency in the country, and required it to be made by either S&W or Colt. Which I guess tells you I'm not exactly a young guy.

But. While my preferred round is .45ACP, I more often carry a Glock .40 S&W, a G27, because it conceals better than most .45s and I spend a lot of time at a university, where I can carry legally, but where way too many people would likely have a heart attack or something if they noticed a concealed gun. And I just ran into something concerning that round which surprised me.

While I'm sure someone, somewhere, has some, when I looked online for .40 tracer rounds, every place I found that lists them was out of stock.

Does anyone know what's going on? Is this just a weird coincidence, did the gun "control" nuts get tracers outlawed, or what?

I've never even heard of tracers for the 40s&w unless they were custom made. Tracers are typically made for the military and then mainly for automatic weapons. What we have for sale is typically overruns or rejected lots. While there are some 40 caliber handguns in the military there are very few PCCs (Pistol Caliber Carbine) in that caliber and they are used even less.

You can't really shoot tracers anywhere due to risk of fire.

Smammo looks like it has some but it appears that whatever is sold is made as by small individual companies. More boutique ammo than anything else.

Why exactly are you looking for tracers for a handgun?
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Hornaday briefly sold tracers in .40 and 9 mm a couple of decades ago, likely other calibers as well. They used a very small tracer element so the fire danger was much less and it looked like it was going to be a big item for them but it seemed to quickly die. I still have a couple of boxes of both calibers, I think boxes of 20 or so. It had all the look of an item that was going to be regular part of the catalog but it was gone very quickly.

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Old paratrooper in NC

I have to agree with Arik, why are you looking for tracers. Most handgun tracer rounds are nearly useless in daylight and they do pose a real fire risk. BTW, I expect your difficulty in finding isn't due to fire concerns or any "ban", it's simply because those who tried them out when they were available found you just couldn't see them in daylight and most shooters don't do any target shooting in the dark. Quite simply you can find them because they are pretty much useless.

One of the companies use to sell something that you could insert in the case if you were a Handloader that would give you the Tracer effect. I haven't seen them around in a few years though. They almost looked like tiny little pieces of phosphorus paper.

Hornady VECTOR Illuminated Trajectory ammunition was offered in 9MM, 40 S&W and 45ACP.
These were available in boxes of 20, 50 and bulk cases. There were at least two different packaging schemes. The ones pictured in the above gunauction images is the most recent and most common packaging.

Vector has been out of their catalog for at least a decade. We purchased a quarter million rounds bulk packed in cases of 2,000 a good 15 years ago, I have a few thousand rounds of the 9MM remaining, but that is it.

These rounds were not packed tracers like the military used where chunks of the tracer could land on the ground still burning. VECTOR was completely range safe. Instead of traditional tracer compound (usually zirconium based) the VECTOR used a single strand of Magnesium wire down the center of the projectile. I used to fire off a magazine full when doing SMG demos to visually illustrate the rate of fire of the different SMGs.

I love the stuff and wish it would return to the market.

Tracers are excellent for signaling. WW2 aviators were issued tracers for their sidearms as a dual-purpose cartridge: defense and signal. If you were to be injured while in the field, tracers would make an excellent substitute for a pin flare or smoke...and it is quick and easy to deploy.

I found several laces on line that list them but all are sold out. I want them for low light conditions. They're great for adjusting fire, which is exactly what they're used for in the military. And very little danger of fire; sometimes people comfuse them with incendiary tounds, which are another animal altogether, and with which there is a lot of fire danger because that's what they were designed to do - start fires, especially in plane and vehicle fuel tanks.

Sounds similar to the stuff I mentioned above for reloaders.