Posted on 11/13/2008 12:20:22 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The votes were barely counted and Barack Obama’s supporters were still dancing in the streets, buoyed by hope for a better tomorrow, when the news reports began to hit the wires. Obama’s victory brought a huge sigh of relief to those weary of the direction in which the country has been led for the last eight years. But on the other side of that coin, intense anger, fear and paranoia has sparked a flood of people nationwide to buy assault weapons and large amounts of ammunition.
Reports on the numbers of people buying guns and ammo over the last year has filtered out in blogs and tiny newspaper articles for some time. But as the election grew near, and especially after the outcome became known, a tidal wave of frantic buying has captured mainstream, front-page news from coast to coast and border to border, including a prominent Sunday spread in Missoula’s daily.
The most interesting thing is that the weapons and ammo most in demand are not the kind of rifles and bullets normally used for hunting, but the so-called “black guns” that are primarily for military and personal protection. These include, but are not limited to, the AK-47, undoubtedly the most widely used assault rifle in the world, and U.S. military counterparts such as the M-16 and AR15.
These guns all have one thing in common besides their military roots—they were outlawed for sale under the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban passed by Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton. The law banned all assault rifle semi-automatics with folding stocks, high-capacity clips, threaded barrels, pistol grips and grenade launcher attachments as well as certain types of pistols and shotguns.
The Assault Weapons Ban expired exactly 10 years later, on September 13, 2004, and neither President Bush nor Congress has attempted to re-instate it. More than a few political observers claim the ban was in large part responsible for the Democrats losing control of Congress for the ensuing decade.
But now, there’s fear sweeping the nation that the new and larger Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate will pass a new weapons ban and that President-elect Obama will sign it into law. If you don’t believe it, just go to a local sporting goods store that carries assault-style rifles and take a look around. Last week, following the election, the lines were three deep in front of every salesperson in my neighborhood gun shops. And late last week a front-page article in the Helena Independent Record interviewed the owner of a local sporting goods and gun shop who said he had just ordered 120,000 rounds of ammo, half of which was already pre-sold.
Or stop into the next gun show in your area. The gun show in Helena last weekend, for instance, set new attendance records and sold out of AK-47 ammo well before it ran out of customers. When I talked with one vendor about what was going on, he told me that the New York Times had called his Missoula shop last week and the reporter tried to get him to admit that it was just the National Rifle Association (NRA) spreading fear and driving the citizenry into purchasing assault rifles while they still could. Besides the gun ban, he added that there was great concern that Congress and Obama would approve a ban on any ammunition that could penetrate law enforcement body armor, which he said would include virtually all high-powered rifles. When I asked how the federal government would deal with those who reloaded their own bullets, he said that those kinds of questions remained unanswered at this time. The result is that the fear and apprehension continue to rise as the intentions of the new Congress and president remain uncertain.
While it would be one thing to say that right-wingers are up in arms (so to speak) over a potential future weapons ban, it would be incorrect to limit concerns only to them. There is considerable evidence that many from the progressive side of the political aisle are equally concerned—but for a different reason.
In their case, they fear that President Obama is literally walking around with a target on his chest. Given the assassinations of President Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King, Jr.—as well as the attempted assassination of President Ronald Reagan—those fears are not unfounded. Pundits may proclaim that Obama’s victory has shown the nation is leaving racism behind, but it would be naïve to think that an almost evenly divided populace would somehow be purged of violent racists through the mere outcome of an election.
The supposition is that if President Obama is assassinated, the nation would be thrown into a violent and uncontrollable cataclysm that would pit citizens against each other in a way we haven’t seen since the race riots of the ’60s ravaged Watts, Detroit, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., leaving hundreds of dead and injured in their wake and millions of dollars in damages. Given the extreme polarization of the populace during the Bush administration, such fears are certainly within the realm of possibility.
Finally, the vast uncertainty over the nation’s economic future must be factored into the equation. It’s well known that, in times of economic downturn, people buy guns and ammo. We here in Montana like to believe it’s for hunting, so we can put meat in our freezers. But you don’t buy AK-47s for hunting in our mega-cities, where big game is non-existent. The only things to shoot there are fellow human beings—in this case, those who would theoretically threaten to harm or loot individuals or families.
No one knows what the future holds, but we do know what’s happening right now. All we can do is hope for cool heads—and cooler trigger fingers—in the coming months, and for the health and safety of our president-elect.
All depends where you live I suppose. In a city, You are most likely going to be defending against anything that comes through your door.
The shot gun will not only stop the perp in his tracks, but deposit him back outside the door, where he won’t be bleeding all over your rug.
When leaving your city house/ apartment, You’d probably want something concealed. People walking around the streets carrying long arms is a little difficult to picture, even in tough times.
Carrying around long arms would be more common in rural areas, Where you can watch for those trying to crash your front gate, or sneak up from surrounding property.
I doubt you’ll see much of that though. matial law would be quickly established, and road blocks would be set up to prevent escapee from leaving the cities in hopes of finding food in the country, which of course there isn’t any.
City people have a unrealistic image in their heads of what is in the rural country side. Farmers with fields full of nice veggies, LoL! Only in some southern states.
grazing on green wheat and oats would loose it’s appeal real fast.
I didn’t go out and buy any guns at all. I did pick up a couple cross bows and healthy supply of bolts through.
Some day, that Big Bad Wolf is going to help himself to what he thinks is his own. The smart people are those who will have read the tea leaves and taken measures to protect life, limb and property, family and pets.
I’ll bet these kinds of FR threads freak out the DU Lurkers the most! They dont have any idea what kind of a tempest they have been stirring up. There is a lot of resentment and patriotism out there.
Military-style weapons, like AR-15s, AKs, FALs, etc. are far more effective for one person against large groups than anything else and the government seems to have come to believe that American citizens should not be trusted with that kind of ability.
If we had militias in the original sense of militias being groups of armed citizens organized and trained ("regulated") together for the common defense, these would be the appropriate weapons they'd need.
We have since "evolved" to having highly militarized government and police organizations which want themselves to be armed to the teeth and swathed in body armor but want the common citizens to be as unarmed as possible. Anybody see a pattern?
The rush to buy "Assault Weapons" and ammunition is the recognition that a right, a connection to history, a status within our own society is about to be permanently taken away and some of us are scrambling to cling to the last vestige of what we used to be.
"We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."Just as strong and powerful as the US Military does not leave much to the imagination.
Just picked up a new rifle myself yesterday. Ammo is still a little tough to come by, though.
I said on one of these threads yesterday, that .223's, .45ACP's, and 7.62x39mm's, are probably the hottest selling rounds. I am curious if anyone has seen any stats on what is getting sold out. (I wouldn't be surprised if 9mm Luger's are also on the list of rapidly disappearing)...
The 2nd Amendment doesn't exist to protect hunters.
And whether the MSM reports it or not the purchases are not for any of the reasons listed above. Personal protection. Yeah...from the government, from the coming civil defence corp, from the smiley faced ....
You know I find it amazing to look at the differences between left and right some days. When the left lost ...they were or wanted to leave the country etc. When we lost ...we're not leaving the country, we're reorganizing the party, we're working to keep America, and we're willing to defend the Constitution.
The MSM is too scared to talk about what is really happening with the guns. To do so would be an admission of guilt to the betrayal of liberty.
“those weary of the direction in which the country has been led for the last eight years”
What everyone misses with this statement is GWB is a Republican Socialist ans the US Congress is socialist.
So the direction we are heading towards is socialism and considering Bush and congress’s approval ratings it all makes sense.
Problem is everytime we run a RINO the left marks his positions as far right, thereby allowing them to move further left.
Purchased a 12 gauge pump yesterday, black.
Fixed it. Every nation in the world, but one, will be likely to increase arms spending in the next four years, as the prospect of a diminished U.S. military looms.
Maybe time to take a page from Acorn and start looking for ways to make the books indecipherable.
This is off topic, but yesterday morning a little before dawn, I nearly hit a 6 point buck. He was standing in the fast lane of the northbound side of the Garden State Parkway, about a mile from Newark Airport. For those of you who don't know, that area is one of the most densely populated and urbanized areas in the whole country. How he got there I honestly couldn't imagine.
LLS
Keep the scattergun for chasing evil doers off the porch.
My thought is that cataloging one’s personal arsenal on a monitored site is a bit unwise.
The MSM thinks paranoia sells newspapers, since nothing else seems to sell newspapers.
As for the guns, sure people are buying them. I was in a local gun-shop last week and heard some interesting conversations. Most of the guys there were hunters and hobbyists who already owned guns and knew a lot about them. But there was a concern about ammo being taxed “500 percent,” and some customers were stocking up.
Owning a weapon in these times seems to me to be simple common sense. We live in a country that is increasingly fractured, where violence is a daily occurrence, often fueled by drugs, where riots are are not unknown, where criminals are armed,and where there are neighborhoods where even the police dread to go. It is also a country on the edge of an economic crisis.
Not a bad idea to be prepared for anything.
A novice can buy a car capable of attaining nearly 200 miles per hour if he has enough money, without any kind of background check, waiting periods, or other government intervention.
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