Monday, May 25, 2009

Is There a Storm Coming?

You know how the bread, milk and water shelves are all bare at your local grocery store when a hurricane or snow storm is on the way? I experienced something of the sort this weekend when I went to some local stores—only I wasn’t looking for bread or milk.

I visited a couple of gun stores this past weekend and what I saw amazed me. At one store I was told they did not have a single box of pistol ammo of any type available—they were totally cleaned out! At a second gun store (much larger) the story was almost the same. All the popular types of handgun ammo were totally sold out—their very extensive ammunition shelves were bare.

Since Barack Obama’s election, gun and ammunition sales have skyrocketed. There is a tremendous shortage of ammunition all across the country, according to Lawrence Keane, senior vice president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. Background checks required when people buy guns at gun stores have raised dramatically. The FBI reported more than 4.2 million background checks from November 2008 through January 2009—a 31 % increase from the prior year.

Why are law-abiding citizens buying up every bit of ammunition they can get their hands on? What has caused this dramatic increase in gun and ammunition sales? Is it feared that the Obama administration will take steps to significantly tax and regulate all ammunition and enact strict new gun control measures? Are Americans afraid that they are in danger of losing their Second Amendment Rights?

The people I saw at the gun stores on Saturday weren’t a bunch of crazy gun nuts.
The people I saw were a tapestry of America - white, black, Asian, Hispanic, men, women, young people, and older people. You could almost sense their panic as they looked upon the bare shelves.

Is there a storm coming?

1 comment:

Tim Crowley said...

Without question America fears not for the loss of their guns, but for loss of their freedom itself. Ironic, isn't it, that anti-gun proponents, by virtue of their proposed legislation and rhetoric, have in just a few short months probably doubled the number of guns in circulation.