Newsreports are already surfacing talking about an increase in gun and ammo sales in the wake of the Oregon Community College shooting.
In Huntington, guns shop owner John Ray Rice said every time the conversation pops up, guns sales go up in suit.
“It’s just common human nature; I need to protect myself and my family,” Rice said.
Much of the common sense legislation proposed in Congress involves stricter background checks, a ban on assault style weaponry and capping magazine size, making it harder for gunmen to kill in large crowds.
“I don’t think that’s common sense,” Rice said.
Look for the monthly NICS reports to show an increase in background checks when the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) shares the information on October sales next month.
Jim Shepherd writes in today’s Shooting Wire that one of the consequences of the run on tactical rifles is that some of the distributors that service gun retailers end up competing with the folks they are supposed to be servicing. Shepherd writes:
More than one dealer is complaining that one distributor is not only raising prices to dealers, they’re selling that same inventory direct to consumers – for the same price. …As one former dealer told me, “it’s always been up to the dealer to make his own money, a distributor can sell to anyone they please as long as the transaction is completed through an FFL.” But, he confided, he wouldn’t bet on the distributor winning any friends in the dealer ranks. Some call it an example of supply and demand; others say it’s no different than the “entrepreneurs” who snapped up all the available plywood in their areas and trucked it to the Gulf Coast following Hurricane Katrina. There, they sold that plywood to disaster victims – at astronomical markups.
Uncertainty is driving gun sales – uncertainty about the economy and political uncertainty. But on the political side, Obama can’t do anything the day he takes office and the legislative process means that it will be weeks, if not months before any potential gun control bill comes up for a vote. So for now, as demand for these firearms continue to outpace manufacturing capacity, patience should be the word of the day.
The President of the Virginia Shooting Sports Association spoke with NRA News’ Cam Edwards on Wednesday night and they talked about several topics of interest to gun owners.
Another local Richmond television station (WRIC TV8) ran a segment last night on gun sales – this time the angle is the run is a by-product of the Obama election victory. Before the stories were how people were preparing for a possible Obama win. Gun owner fears were correct – yesterday the Official Transistion web site went live and under “Agenda” you will find a section on “Urban Policy” and under that section you will find a section on “Crime and Law Enforcement.” That section states:
Address Gun Violence in Cities: As president, Barack Obama would repeal the Tiahrt Amendment, which restricts the ability of local law enforcement to access important gun trace information, and give police officers across the nation the tools they need to solve gun crimes and fight the illegal arms trade. Obama and Biden also favor commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals who shouldn’t have them. They support closing the gun show loophole and making guns in this country childproof. They also support making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent, as such weapons belong on foreign battlefields and not on our streets.
ABC Nightline ran a segment last night on the surge in gun sales as a reaction by gun owners to the Obama Victory.
AR-15s appear to be in short supply according to the story. They also had to take the “drive-by” swipe at the NRA saying the organization had scared gun owners into believing Obama was going to take our guns. Shouldn’t expect anything less from the media. Fact is NRA never said Obama was going to take our guns – they did warn that he would do everything he could to make it harder to buy new ones – guns like semi-auto firearms. NRA was right.
I said Obama would try to strike while the iron was hot and it appears I was correct.
Gun Owners, we are in for a rough four years.
Update: A gun shop owner in Arizona was interviewed for a Reuters story and he shares my thoughts on this issue:
I’d rather that (Republican Sen. John) McCain got in and there’s not a big scare and we just followed our normal sales,” Chee told Reuters, rather than say right now we are going to make a lot of money for a few months, and then in a few months, possibly, our business could be shut down.
I posted on this earlier this week but it continues to be news. Cam Edwards on NRANews last night led his program with it as well. The increase in gun sales as the election approaches is clearly a nationwide story. All you have to do is google “Increase in Gun Sales” and you get page after page of articles around the nation, even here in Virginia.
National Review’s Jim Geraghtysaid on NRANews last night it is possible that if Obama wins and he has increased majorities in both houses of Congress as expected, that Obama will try to strike while the “iron is hot” and push through things like a renewal of the Clinton gun ban, to name one. Geraghty believes it will be hard for even normally pro-gun Democrats (he named Heath Shuler as an example but not to single him out) to resist the arm twisting from a president of the same party in the first 100 days.
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