Posted on 03/31/2009 5:17:17 AM PDT by kellynla
As I was walking through the ammunition aisle at my local Bass Pro Shops, I muttered to the man standing next to me how disappointingly empty the shelves were. “Not as bad as last week”, he said. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Back in February, Cabelas, a publicly-traded outdoor outfitter saw its stock go up 35% in one day when earnings blew away estimates because of very strong “sales of firearms and related accessories.”
If President Obama has stimulated anything in America, it is demand for guns and ammunition. According to Rich Wyatt, the voluble and intense owner of Gunsmoke -- a firearms training facility just outside Denver -- “If I had known it would be this good in the gun business, I might have voted for Obama.”
It’s not just a couple of stores seeing a run on guns and even more so on ammunition. From local gun shops to WalMart to sporting goods stores, the story is the same: When the store gets a shipment of ammo, particularly .45, 9mm, and .38 handgun ammunition, “people come in and they buy it all.”
The manager of a local gun shop where I’ve been a customer told me that business has doubled since the election. Whereas the typical first time buyer pre-election had generally been a 30- or 40-something male, first time gun buyers now include more younger people, older people, and women than in the past. “They’re buying semi-automatic pistols and shotguns for home defense, as well as ‘concealed weapons’. There’s also a strong interest in ‘black guns’”, military-style assault rifles, both from people who want to buy them “because they can” as well as others who believe they’ll be able to sell them at higher prices someday soon.
Where politics was rarely mentioned during a gun purchase a year ago, the store manager says at least 60% of his customers mention the Obama administration now.
At Rich Wyatt’s Gunsmoke, “We are getting ‘Prius-driving Obama people’ buying guns because they realize they picked the wrong pony…even though they never admit it.” Just like my local gun shop, Wyatt has “old ladies and young people and liberals” buying guns. He says that while there were spikes in gun buying during the Clinton administration, during the Rodney King riots, and even just before Y2K, he’s never seen anything remotely on this scale.
A customer I spoke with at Bass Pro Shops (the employees wouldn’t speak with me for an article) actually owns a gun shop, but he was buying ammunition there because his wholesaler had run out. His customers are hoarding ammunition and, to a lesser extent, guns. He described a recent spectacle at a gun show where one vendor had a relatively large supply of ammunition and customers were swarming around him buying 50 boxes at a time…and not at a bargain price.
At Dick’s Sporting Goods, they were almost out of .45 ammunition after having received a shipment just that morning. Not only are people buying as much ammunition as they can find and afford, they’re doing it during the work day rather than taking the chance that it will be gone by the weekend.
As if the message weren’t clear enough, a sign at a local WalMart said “Due to the increased demand from customers for ammunition, our suppliers are increasing production…” A salesman said that their ammunition supply is now infrequent and unpredictable: “We used to get shipments almost every day. Now we only know we’ll have it when we see it. I get at least a half-dozen calls a day asking for ammunition, especially for handguns, and when it arrives, the customers buy everything.”
Over at Gunsmoke, Rich Wyatt says “Now, it’s not what the ammo costs; it’s ‘do you have it?’”
Much of the demand for ammunition is due to an NRA advertising campaign during election season which described Barack Obama’s historical positions on gun issues, including having said that he would support a 500% federal tax on guns and ammunition. And while it is true that Obama has not made many anti-gun statements recently, gun rights expert David Kopel explains clearly that Barack Obama is easily the most anti-gun President in US history.
In his 2004 Senate campaign, Barack Obama said he would like to ban concealed carry permits. Now that Obama is President, Gunsmoke’s concealed carry courses are selling out class after class (50 people in each) in addition to their 3-day pistol classes, which are already sold out through June.
“People are petrified…afraid for their rights that Obama is going to attack. And while Obama says he doesn’t support banning guns, a 500% tax would effectively be a financial ban on both guns and ammunition. I think the left’s goal is that in 50 or 100 years, there are people who don’t even know that they could have bought guns or ammunition.”
Colorado is several months behind in processing concealed carry permits because of demand. Last month, it was reported that Florida “is buried under a backlog of 95,000 applications for concealed-weapons permits and it needs to hire a lot more people to handle the paperwork.” In Georgia, firearm permits were up 79% in 2008 over 2007. In Oklahoma, the number is around 90%. In Ohio, the number of concealed carry licenses issued in the 4th quarter of 2008 was 111% higher than the 4th quarter of 2007.
Wyatt’s concealed carry classes emphasize the basics of gun use, safety, and the law, but “It’s Politics 101 as well, trying to make sure people understand not only their rights regarding guns but also the Constitution and their rights and responsibilities as American citizens.” He tries to make sure people are conscious of the “boiling the frog” approach by government to infringing on our rights, and gun rights in particular, just slowly enough that the average person might not notice. Just be prepared, he warns, for the return of government saying “We’re not banning all guns…just these guns.” And that’s part of the reason that there’s so much demand for ‘these’ guns, which is to say just about every type of gun you can imagine.
Since the election, the shares of gunmaker Smith & Wesson have more than doubled, with competitor Ruger’s shares up nearly as much. Two weeks ago a large gun and ammunition manufacturer, Olin Corp. raised its earnings guidance, anticipating a record quarterly profit for its Winchester ammunition division. The American public is speaking, and they’re saying in no uncertain terms that they don’t believe President Obama’s claims to support gun rights since his history says something very different.
Rich Wyatt’s position is typically none too subtle: “Barack Obama is right about one thing. We are clinging to God and our guns, and I defy him to try to take either one from us.”
As for me, after a day of thinking about the Obama administration and guns, I bought my local WalMart’s last box of .38 caliber ammunition.
“Billy Bob loves Charlene”?
Given how aggressive Walmart is on their pricing demands to suppliers, I'm going to guess that ammo suppliers will ship to regular gun shops first right now.
In December 2008, I started trying to buy newer ammo for my home and self protection guns.
Walmart and the other local retailers have been out of the specific ammo on most trips.
I’m about there after about 4 months. Specific ammo for pistols and 00 in various 12 gauge lengths have been hard to get, and I still need to buy some more ammo in these categories.
Hopefully, I should be finished with the updates this week.
Now, there is a bigger question:
Who/Whom where you live, would you trust to back you up if something happened in your neighborhood.
Like my older son, I’m the only gun owner on our cul de sac and he on his. Our younger son lives about a half mile away as the crow flies, and he is in the same situation. He will be moving about 20 miles away in April.
My older son’s best friend and his cousin live in this area. They are in the same situation re being the only gun owning conservatives on the blocks where they live. They purchased nice trailers during the recent gas price raping and have installed them on their dad’s and uncle shared farm/ranch, out of sight and below the line of fire from the road. They have food in the trailers and their Dad’s storage areas. They have heavy duty water filtering capabilities for the two trailers to use the water from the good size pond. They have stationary generators and solar panels on the trailers to help charge the storage batteries.
Last but not least they have set up plans for their wives to take their kids to their grandparents in case something happens during a workday or the guys are out of town. They have two roads off the main hiways to get to the ranch and 4 X 4 trails on their Dads’s and neighbor’s ranch’s to come in back ways.
My sons and I need to discuss our options and how to get together and where.
I purchased what I thought was going to be an unbannable rifle...
When I looked at the new and improved ban that gets filed every new session, I look at the Appendix “A” which lists the weapons they would like to ban, and it showed up...I about blew a gasket...
The Marlin 1895’s are now considered an “assault rifle” according to the latest filed bill...At least the pimped out SS version...
I too enjoy launching gigantic hunks of flat nosed lead...It lowers my blood pressure and creaes a sense of calm that is extremely therapeudic...My doctor totally agrees with my regimen...
CZ52s also are prone to having certain pins that hold them together back out. Make certain they are peened and monitor them closely. If you do that, this becomes a non-issue.
I also had the bottom of a surplus magazine drop out and I never found base or the spring. I have never heard of this happening to anyone else, so it is probably unfair to label it as a problem.
I have several. They are fun to shoot, and feed or ejection failures have been non existent with any of the nasty surplus ammo I have used in any of my CZ52s.
One more comment — the Bulgarian surplus is not well regarded. Romanian is almost the same price does not have the issues [serious over pressures?] that seem to have been attributed to the Bulgarian stuff.
From local gun shops to WalMart to sporting goods stores, the story is the same: When the store gets a shipment of ammo, particularly .45, 9mm, and .38 handgun ammunition, “people come in and they buy it all.”
I was through Wally World Saturday. Outside of hunting ammo, there was one lone box of .357 sig, one of .30 Carbine and a few boxes of .380. No other pistol ammo. No bulk .22LR. No .223, 7.62x39 or .308.
Am I hording? Sort-of.
Since the midterm election I've been buying more ammo than I shoot, a box or two every paycheck. Lately concentrating on bulk .22, powder and primers for handloading, and bullet molds for casting. Also adjusting my collection.
No, it was more like, “The Varsity Seniors love Charlene!”
No, ya wouldn’t want that on the water tower for long.
Alternate means of communication will also be needed, a CB will work fine but consider other types of radios like using a Marine radio or shortwave, I have a company radio that goes through a repeater, during the day its of course used by other drivers but at night its wide open, all it requires is a filtered 12v supply and a transceiver the same as in the trucks and a small antenna, the public does not usually use that frequency and it may be off the radar so to speak, it has a good range of 60 miles depending on terrain.
I have some advice for reloaders I’m willing to share, Barnes has and is shipping free if order is over $75 most of its line including old stock at closeout prices, I just bought a fair amount of .400 155gr M/LE tactical all copper bullets, these are rated very high for barrier penetration and controlled expansion, they are identical to the XPB.
I got a CZ a couple of years ago as a backup gun. Compact, reliable and cheap.
If he lived beside me, I’d tell him...
“Your looting career will end quickly and with extreme violence if you try and take anything away from my family.”
Overheard a WalMart clerk, around 9PM, telling a customer “yeah, we’ve got a shipment of ammo X in the truck at the loading dock right now. If you want any, you MUST be here before 8AM or it will be sold out.”
Nonetheless, it is accepted as law. Proving it isn’t in court some 23 years after the fact is unlikely.
If you warn him, he might be better prepared when he shows up. Though with a waster like that, it probably doesn't matter.
Interesting. Hadn't seen that. Links? I'm curious, and concerned.
I wonder how NRA’s membership is doing. It soared when Gore ran for POTUS.
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