My eldest son decided to go target shooting with some friends yesterday. They gave up because they couldn’t find a store with any ammunition left. He sent me a cellphone pic of Cabela’s showing nothing but rows of empty shelves. In certain calibers, they couldn’t find any available ammo at any store they called. He reported similar results for a variety of guns. They’ve apparently been bought up by folks worried about the administration’s stance on gun ownership, and the stores are literally empty (of some types).
My question is whether the current frenzy is causing a significant increase in the number of guns now in private hands. Is this a short-term bump in sales (to be followed by a slump)? Or did thousands (millions?) of people rush out and buy a gun when they otherwise wouldn’t have?
To me it seems like one of those “law of unintended consequences” things, and I wonder about the net effect (of all the new guns and ammo in the system). I’m curious about your opinions.
I just want to know what they did with all the .30-30 ammo. Rob a stagecoach?
Okay, a rough stab:
There were apparently 270,000,000 in private hands in 2007.
More recently, ~350,000,000
For NICS checks (note that I do not believe this counts multiple firearms bought on the same occasion.
Nov 2012: just over 2 million
Dec 2012: under 2.8 million
A little over 1 percent of what’s already there? If we can find a figure for January thus far, add it in. I’m sure someone could make the math better. Net effect, probably not much. Effect in what?
Yes people buy it because it might be impossible to get later, or for investment when prices climb, nutty reasons, etc.
I doubt that there will be any impact. Most of the people panic-buying guns and ammo are already gun owners who want to put a couple more evil-looking rifles in the safe before they’re banned* and stock up on ammo before new legislation drives the price way up.* These people aren’t going to do anything with the new guns they don’t already do with the old, i.e., take them to the range, clean them, buy expensive accessories for them, and then put them back in the safe with all the others.
Which is not to say that people won’t keep using firearms to kill one another. People killing people is a fact of life. I just don’t think the rates thereof will be affected at all.
Seems to me that’s its been going on for at least around a year and a half. Concensus is that it is due to people having the belief that the current administration and current state legislatures will make life more difficult and expensive for gun owners, so now is the time to stock up on ammunition (and guns). Most of the sotres in my area were out of the most common calibers and Wal-Mart told me that people were trying to get there when the shipments arrived in order to be first, but that there were some employees who were buying it up before it hit the shelves in order to supply yhrmselves and presumably their friends.
I went to a gun show about a month ago for the first time in maybe 15 years. The line was a quarter mile long, and I got there as the gates were opening. Ammo sales were insane. The vendors couldn’t oput it out onto the tables fast enough.
There are on-line sites that sell ammo and even theym with big warehouses, are selling out of a lot of stuff.
At one point the story was about that the ammmunition shortage was due to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and so on, but this is not true as thwe government (US) has its own dedicated factory for small arms ammunition.
A gun seller told me jokingly a couple of years ago that Barak Obama is the greatest gun salesman in history. It isn’t far from the truth. And that was before we found out about Fast and Furious and the other similar gun-walking operations (check Univision’s website for details).
Although ammunition manufacturers do runs of ammunition destined for government contracts, the government doesn’t run its own ammunition plant as far as I know. I can go buy the same Lake City 5.56 as the military uses so long as they’re not totally monopolizing the production lines.
Sounds to me like a similar reaction as when Johnny Carson announced a toilet paper shortage. It’s becoming a self-fulfilling prophesy - obviously there’s no available ammo because teh evul gummint won’t let any more be made, or they’re buying it all up themselves, or some other lunacy… :rolleyes:
I wonder if the rates will go down a bit. If recreational shooters are emptying the stores of ammo, there’s less available for the street punks (who are responsible for most of the gun violence).
As I mentioned in another thread, I’ve long thought to build an old-style ‘M-16’. (In quotes because obviously it would not be automatic.) I picked up a couple of parts specific to that style in the late-'80s/early-'90s. The only old-style lower receivers were on the Colt SP1 model. Two problems with that: SP1 AR-15s were expensive even then, and I lived in California so I couldn’t buy one after 1994 anyway. After I moved out of California, there were too many other things going on in my life to think about my collection. It is only in the last week that I’ve discovered that old-style lower receivers are being made, and I could finally start my build. Only the panic buying has put the manufacturer way behind in production; so much so that they are not taking any new orders until further notice.
I do not believe the government will ban the sale of guns or ammunition. But they might re-instate the 1994 ban, which would mean that I would not be able to build the rifle I want to build. (Gotta have that bayonet lug for authenticity.) AR15-type lower receivers are becoming scarce, as people want to have them before a ban goes into effect. If there is a ban, I can still do it – but I’d have to pay through the nose for the after-market ‘flat-side’ receiver, or else pay through the nose for a '70s SP1. I don’t want to ‘stock up’; I just want that one particular receiver. But there are a buttload of people who are buying as many of any type of AR-15 lower receiver they can afford, so the supply is limited. I should have thought about it sooner.
It was impossible to find ammunition four years ago when Obama was first elected. Several of my collection are .22LR caliber. My Ruger Mk.II pistol does not like Remington ammunition, which I have a couple/few hundred rounds of. When I tried to buy a different brand for it, nobody had any .22 LR. I eventually did get a ‘brick’ of .22LR, and I still have it somewhere as once again I got busy and couldn’t go out to the range. I haven’t looked for any ammo recently, but I’ll bet it’s a similar situation now.
So yeah, people are buying up certain types of firearms (and, I assume, ammunition) because they think that they will be unavailable soon. As was shown after 1994, AR15-type firearms will be modified by the manufacturers to abide by the law. People will still be able to buy them. The panic buying makes it hard for those of us who have other interests in firearms than being a badass.
I don’t think the “street punks” are using .223 Remington. I have little trouble obtaining .45 ACP and .357; 9mm is hit or miss but all the .223/5.56 is cleaned out.
We’ve had shortages here of all the common handgun calibers as well as .223 Remington. Two weeks ago there wasn’t a single box of 9mm to be had in Scheels, and only a few boxes at Cabelas (and they were limiting the number of boxes a customer could buy). There wasn’t a lot of the other handgun calibers, either (even .22LR), and NO high-quality hollowpoint stuff at all. That seems to be changing for the better, though, so maybe whatever impulse sent people off to stockpile handgun ammo is passing. Rifle stuff’s still hard to find, though.
Actually, it’s the fact that the gun-control lobby shamelessly exploited Sandy Hook in order to push their agenda items (regardless of whether they had anything to do with Sandy Hook or not).
Doh, I got a phone call and didn’t finish that post.
I was at my local gun store this morning (don’t worry, I was looking at totally harmless, bolt-action hunting rifles ;)). They had about 500 handgun boxes lined up against the wall, each one corresponding to a person waiting for a background check. And plenty of handguns still on display.
In talking to people, I concluded it was split about 50/50 between gun enthusiasts adding to their collection while they could, and new gun buyers who were motivated to buy by recent events and political posturing.
A friend couldn’t find any .22 ammo in Richmond, Virginia recently. That type of ammo is normally cheap and plentiful.
From what I’ve heard, people have been putting off purchases due to the lackluster economy but they’re buying now because it’s possible their desired items might not be available in the future.
As it is ammo is $1 a round, if you can find it. It was 10 cents or less a round not that long ago.
Yeah, Gander Mountain here was cleaned out of .22 ammo yesterday. Not just Long Rifle (the most popular by far), even the .22 shorts and CB shorts were totally gone. I didn’t even see .22 shotshells.
All the shotgun ammo you want though.
Rob a stagecoach?