January 20, 2013

Unintended consequences - gun grab

From Sari Horwitz and Peter Finn writing at The Washington Post:
Gun control debate may be driving higher sales
The United States appears to be experiencing a rec­ord run on military-style assault weapons, high-capacity magazines and some kinds of ammunition as buyers deluge stores in search of guns and bullets they fear will be banned by the Obama administration, according to firearms industry executives and market analysts.

Even allowing for spikes in gun sales that follow every mass killing in the United States and attendant political debates about gun control, industry executives said the surge seems unprecedented.

And it has emptied shelves of the kind of semiautomatic rifle that was used to kill 20 children and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., last month, the deaths that sparked President Obama’s proposal for tougher gun laws.
Emphasis mine -- that was debunked in an earlier post. Get your facts right. More:
In some areas, a buyer walking into a gun store now will have to wait up to a year to buy a military-style assault weapon. The prices of available semiautomatics have doubled as buyers bid up the dwindling supply, and stocks of Glock handguns are also low.
More:
“2012 was a year of unparalleled growth and success for the firearms industry and its law-abiding customers,” said Stephen L. Sanetti, president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, headquartered in Newtown.

Sanetti said that more than 73 percent of retailers surveyed by the gun manufacturers’ trade group had increased sales over the previous year, and that first-time buyers have increased to more than 25 percent of all customers.
Emphasis mine -- it's not hoarders grabbing more, a full 25% are new buyers. The authors have this confused air of not understanding why this is happening. They do not seem to grasp that their thought process is very much in the minority in this nation and that their laws will not affect a criminal's actions. The 500+ comments are worth a quick glance -- they are about 70% moonbat to 30% voice of reason. Some of them are calling for the abolishment of the NRA. As Robert Anson Heinlein once said:
An armed society is a polite society.
Posted by DaveH at January 20, 2013 12:43 PM