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.
ammo? what ammo?
actually, it seems that primers are the hardest for me to come by.
I’ve been stockpiling since the 70’s.
Be Ever Vigilant!
I wondered if anyone was going to bring that book up. Everyone here should read it.
Unintended Consequences
http://www.scribd.com/doc/11793519/Unintended-Consequences
Here is one instance in a popular forum.
http://www.thehighroad.org/showthread.php?t=439235
Acquaintance want me to provide his ammo..
A fellow that I was acquainted with about 5 years ago showed up on my doorstep last night. He is a fairly nice guy but we are not really friends, I’ve never been in his home. He is quite well to do and I’m just Joe blue collar.
Well the Ammo shortage has caught up to him. And he thought of me, the neighborhood gun guy. He wanted me to find him some high quality Hollow point ammo for his 45acp’s . He has 2 Kimbers. And the same type ammo in 357 Sig. and 380 Auto.
I told him he was about a year behind the curve on getting any of that.
Then he wanted me to use my componentes to reload him about 1000 rounds of each of HIS prefered ammo. He said that he would pay me a “good” price for it and he would try and replace my components sometime soon.
I don’t want to be a jerk but I don’t want to use up my components that I got at what are now good prices, in the hopes that he will be able to replace them at his leisure. I just don’t want to do any reloading for him, but he thinks that HIS time is to valuable to learn how to do and then the supply problems are there also. How can I handle this with out coming off as a real Jerk. I know all about not reloading for others with out the Federal licenses and so forth but he says that it’ll just be between us and no one needs to know.
You thoughts and idea would be welcome.....
When I saw who the two front runners for President were about the middle of last year, I started laying in primers. Glad I did. I just wish I had seen the stock market crash as clearly.
Wouldn’t you like to know? ;)
LMAO!
And water!
Good point:
For those ultimate SHTF/TEOTWAWKI situations where one would most likely use a GPS to place find a cache, GPS may very well be shut off right when you need to find it.
“Trust no one except blood and then be very careful!”
Exactly!
Do the Marine Radios work in areas with hills, gullies, arroyos?
Thanks
I cannot answer that, VHF is usually line of sight so I would think it will be degraded. I suggest the VHF Marine radio because its not expensive to buy and would not have cluttered frequencies like CB in an urban area, of course being near a marina is another story, I was thinking in open country away from boating areas it would be “under the radar” so to speak.
There is always carrier pigeons...
I’ve noticed that, also. Whole families. Last weekend there was a young family and dad and grandpa were teaching thier girls to shoot a 22. I’ld guess the girls were 8 and 5 years of age.
BTW if it got so bad that even communication is compromised we should consider messengers, maybe pizza delivery persons, cab drivers, septic tank drivers. I do not want to visualize any more of that scenario, lets just all concentrate on repairing our country for now.
Sounds like he is the jerk...
If you are already tagged as the “nieghborhood gun guy”, that alone puts you in hot water...
There is a sheeple expectation that during times of uncertainty and potential loss of freedoms in this country, that there will be some “well-to-do’s” that will quietly try to buy themselves some preparedness in times like these...
How you handle that is up to you...
By this being posted in a couple of public forums it is common knowledge...And no one is truely anonymous in these places, I can guarantee you that...
So for this to be bwteeen two people is ludicrous...
I would tell him (Mr. Well-to-do) that it is against the law to do this for another person and then drop it...
Their money will mean nothing in the long run...
That is key...
Tell him if he can come up with components, you’ll show him how to load his own.
...smoke signals...
I got a book on that stuff...;-)
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