http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/11/11/obama.gun.sales/index.html wrote:
Weapons dealers in much of the United States are reporting sharply higher sales since Barack Obama won the presidency a week ago.
Buyers and sellers attribute the surge to worries that Obama and a Democratic-controlled Congress will move to restrict firearm ownership, despite the insistence of campaign aides that the president-elect supports gun rights and considers the issue a low priority.
According to FBI figures for the week of November 3 to 9, the bureau received more than 374,000 requests for background checks on gun purchasers -- a nearly 49 percent increase over the same period in 2007. Conatser said his store, Virginia Arms Company, has run out of some models -- such as the AR-15 rifle, the civilian version of the military's M-16 -- and is running low on others.
Such assault weapons are among the firearms that gun dealers and customers say they fear Obama will hit with new restrictions, or even take off the market.
Virginia gun owner Kyle Lewandowski said he was buying a .45-caliber pistol to "hedge my bets."
"Every election year, you have to worry about your rights being eroded a little bit at a time," he said. "I also knew, because of the Democrat majority and because of the election, everybody would have the same reaction I did," he added.
But Peter Hamm, a spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, called the buying spree "goofy." He said widespread talk of banning guns is a "sales pitch."
"With the glacial speed that we make progress on sensible gun laws, savvy gun consumers should know better than to think they have to rush out and buy guns," Hamm said. Similar surges accompanied the election of Bill Clinton, the last Democratic president, he added.
Dealers in Colorado, Ohio, Connecticut and New Hampshire also reported seeing major increases.
"It's a fact that the liberal Democrats that now control all three branches of our government do not like guns. They want us out of business," Connecticut resident Scott Hoffman said. "They don't want the average American to have a right to defend themselves."
Buyers and sellers attribute the surge to worries that Obama and a Democratic-controlled Congress will move to restrict firearm ownership, despite the insistence of campaign aides that the president-elect supports gun rights and considers the issue a low priority.
According to FBI figures for the week of November 3 to 9, the bureau received more than 374,000 requests for background checks on gun purchasers -- a nearly 49 percent increase over the same period in 2007. Conatser said his store, Virginia Arms Company, has run out of some models -- such as the AR-15 rifle, the civilian version of the military's M-16 -- and is running low on others.
Such assault weapons are among the firearms that gun dealers and customers say they fear Obama will hit with new restrictions, or even take off the market.
Virginia gun owner Kyle Lewandowski said he was buying a .45-caliber pistol to "hedge my bets."
"Every election year, you have to worry about your rights being eroded a little bit at a time," he said. "I also knew, because of the Democrat majority and because of the election, everybody would have the same reaction I did," he added.
But Peter Hamm, a spokesman for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, called the buying spree "goofy." He said widespread talk of banning guns is a "sales pitch."
"With the glacial speed that we make progress on sensible gun laws, savvy gun consumers should know better than to think they have to rush out and buy guns," Hamm said. Similar surges accompanied the election of Bill Clinton, the last Democratic president, he added.
Dealers in Colorado, Ohio, Connecticut and New Hampshire also reported seeing major increases.
"It's a fact that the liberal Democrats that now control all three branches of our government do not like guns. They want us out of business," Connecticut resident Scott Hoffman said. "They don't want the average American to have a right to defend themselves."
What do you all think? To me it sounds like gun dealers have made the pitch to "get 'em while you can!" despite the Obama campaign not having gun control on the table for quite a while. Seems odd to me that in a time when the economy is so sour and people are losing their life savings, they can still shell out the cash for a civvy version of an M-16.
I suppose that if the economy keeps going down they can use the weapons to loot and pillage?
I don't know, something about using the election results as a sales pitch for firearms reeks of unethical dealings similar to stores advertising iodine pills for radiation poisoning if they're near a plant or emergency rations/duct tape/flood insurance for incoming storms after Katrina. Ie, the kernel of truth in the situation is grossly overstated and misrepresented in order to boost sales. Good idea, bad idea?
