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Gun Sales Shoot Up On Holidays
The Salt Lake Tribune ^ | 12/31/05 | Glen Warchol

Posted on 12/31/2005 8:50:14 AM PST by skyman

Gun sales shoot up on holidays

By Glen Warchol The Salt Lake Tribune Salt Lake Tribune

Gun sales shoot up on holidays By Glen Warchol The Salt Lake Tribune

'Tis the season of peace, good will, to be jolly and, in the case of Utah gun shops, to sell 12,728 guns. And counting . . . Utah will break previous annual gun sales records for the year and for the holiday season, when firearm sales are traditionally hotter than, well - a Saturday night special.

Sales have been inching up nearly every year, reaching this year's record of nearly 72,000 rifles, shotguns, pistols and revolvers sold. That's 10 percent over 2004's 65,222. December sales - guns apparently make great gifts - are up 17 percent over the same period last year with two buying days remaining in the year. Gun purchase figures are based on background checks run on buyers by the Utah Bureau of Criminal Identification. (Guns sold by private individuals do not require background checks.) "Sales have been going extremely well," said Sterling Morris, manager at Ogden's Impact Arms. "Over the past two, three weeks, we've been selling 20 or 30 a day."

Although Morris says most holiday firearms shoppers are "wives buying for husbands. We do see some first-time guns being bought for kids." Impact's hottest seller has been the Benelli Nova pump shotgun, sleek in black or camouflage at $300 and $350, respectively.

Joyce Carter, manager of the firearms section of BCI, says most guns sold are long guns, that is shotguns and rifles. About a third of sales are of handguns. She attributes part of this year's sales jump to the August opening of Cabela's sporting megastore in Lehi. Cabela's 150,000-square-foot

showroom includes animal displays, aquariums and dog kennels, thousands of firearms and accessories, and draws customers regionally. "But Cabela's doesn't account for all these sales," Carter says. "I think we have a lot of sportsmen out there and it's a good time of year to buy a new firearm," says Lenny Rees, Hunter Education coordinator for the Department of Wildlife Resources.

Utah's increase would fly in the face of a downward trend in hunting and gun-sport participation in recent years, which researchers attribute to the competition for young people's time of nongun outdoor sports, television and video games. "Utah's hunting license and permit sales are stable," Rees says.

"In 2004, we actually had a slight increase in youth hunting licenses." Impact has sold many novice shooters their first firearms in the last year, Morris says, "If shooting is on a decline, I'm not seeing it." --- The trend of increased gun sales in December was first identified by University of Utah journalism student Jay Rogers in statistical records he obtained from the state.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: banglist; christmas; christmaslist; firearms; guns
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1 posted on 12/31/2005 8:50:15 AM PST by skyman
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To: skyman
Gun Sales Shoot Up On Holidays

..so do Fruit Cakes

Doogle

2 posted on 12/31/2005 8:53:26 AM PST by Doogle (USAF...8thAF...4077th TFW...408th MMS...Ubon Thailand..."69"..Night Line Delivery,AMMO)
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To: skyman

Give the gift that keeps on giving........GUNS!!!!!


3 posted on 12/31/2005 8:53:53 AM PST by Vaquero ("An armed society is a polite society" Robert Heinlein)
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To: skyman

Memo to Muslims everywhere: We evidently are NOT France.


4 posted on 12/31/2005 8:54:35 AM PST by Emmet Fitzhume ("Without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure." President Reagan)
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To: skyman

YaaaaaaHoooooooo!!!!!!


5 posted on 12/31/2005 8:54:49 AM PST by therut
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To: skyman

I was in hopes I would find one of these under my tree this year, but, alas, disappointed again.

6 posted on 12/31/2005 8:55:21 AM PST by DJ Taylor (Once again our country is at war, and once again the Democrats have sided with our enemy.)
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To: skyman

Oh,honey....an M-60 for *me*? You're a sweetheart!


7 posted on 12/31/2005 8:56:57 AM PST by Gay State Conservative
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To: skyman
Golly jee willikers whiz kid....December gun sales are up....it's Christmas time...I bet the sales of all kinds of stuff are up.

But you knew that didn't you...

Folks who shoot targets,clay pigeons,hunt buy guns for their kids and significant others...always have always will as long as America is still 'The Land Of The Free'

get used to it...
8 posted on 12/31/2005 9:01:27 AM PST by joesnuffy (A camel once bit our sister.. but we knew what to do.. we gathered rocks and squashed her!)
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To: DJ Taylor
I was in hopes I would find one of these under my tree this year, but, alas, disappointed again.

I know the feeling.

9 posted on 12/31/2005 9:01:28 AM PST by ncountylee (Dead terrorists smell like victory)
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To: Gay State Conservative

You'll shoot your EYE out!


10 posted on 12/31/2005 9:01:33 AM PST by GenXFreedomFighter (We smirked our way back for a second term!)
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To: skyman
Hey, folks gotta' have some way to get those pesky relatives to leave after the holidays.....
11 posted on 12/31/2005 9:02:33 AM PST by Libertarian444
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To: skyman

The Cabela's in Hamburg Pennsylvania did good this year. I don't know the numbers but a slaesclerk I talked to yesterday said it was the first slow day of the season. Even a liberal teacher friend of mine got himself a gun.


12 posted on 12/31/2005 9:03:27 AM PST by stevio (Red-Blooded American Male (NRA))
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To: skyman

I played my part, I just bought another AR15 M4 with a new EOTech sighting system, havent even fired it yet. My Christmas present to myself.


13 posted on 12/31/2005 9:05:57 AM PST by GregoTX (The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.)
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To: DJ Taylor

Some of my friends subscribe to the notion that "Love is a belt fed weapon.." I kinda like the bucket fed variety myself; but, to each his own ;)


14 posted on 12/31/2005 9:07:48 AM PST by Havoc (President George and King George.. coincidence?)
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To: Doogle

It was a gun kind of Christmas at our house this year. Dad + 3 sons = 4 new guns. What a great Christmas.


15 posted on 12/31/2005 9:08:28 AM PST by showme_the_Glory (No more rhyming, and I mean it! ..Anybody got a peanut.....)
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To: Doogle

And what about Christmas Trees? Their sales are REALLY up around Christmas. I think someone should do a study.


16 posted on 12/31/2005 9:09:17 AM PST by MineralMan (godless atheist)
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To: skyman

My parents gave me a .38 revolver for Christmas.


17 posted on 12/31/2005 9:09:56 AM PST by somniferum
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To: skyman

Took the kids in to a new doctor a couple days ago for their check-ups and you'll never believe what the doctor felt was an appropriate question - Do you have guns in the house... bad... locks... ammo... blah, blah, blah. What?!? In my hazy 101 temperature and the "good" cough syrup induced state, I failed to crawl inside her lab coat and rip out her heart thinking it best to finish what we came for and then change doctors. The kids (teens) also sat there with their jaws on the ground unable to reply as she ranted on. Several hours later, finally getting to the house and missing a dose of cough syrup, I came to enough to tell them, and LE Lt. M, next time to proudly announce they were tops on the rifle team and would the doctor like to go to the next competiton.


18 posted on 12/31/2005 9:13:20 AM PST by mtbopfuyn (Legality does not dictate morality... Lavin)
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To: skyman

"She attributes part of this year's sales jump to the August opening of Cabela's sporting megastore in Lehi.



OH Yeah! Stopped by on our way back to CA from deer hunting in WY. All I can say is "DROOLDROOLDROOLDROOLDROOLDROOL.....!!!!!"


19 posted on 12/31/2005 9:18:25 AM PST by gc4nra ( this tag line protected by Kimber and the First Amendment (I voted for McClintock))
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To: Vaquero
Indeed!

Robert Heinlein also said.. TANSTAAFL!

20 posted on 12/31/2005 9:21:07 AM PST by xcamel (a system poltergeist stole it.)
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