Posted by
John Caile on Thursday, March 05, 2009 1:55:00 PM
For the price of a box of ammo you can buy a dozen shares of Citigroup, now less than $1 a share. But given the choice, more and more people are opting for bullets over banks, selling their plummeting stocks and buying guns and ammunition. Guns, especially handguns and military style rifles, are flying off the shelves - an AR-15 put up on the rack will be gone in "about an hour" a local dealer reported.
And ammunition prices have nearly doubled as demand has soared - many sporting goods stores have nearly empty shelves. Even Wal-Mart, who buys huge quantities at a crack, report that popular handgun and 223 rifle ammo is "put on the shelves in the morning and is gone by the end of the day."
More intriguing is that, while existing firearms owners are doing much of the buying (especially ammunition), many of the customers are first time gun owners, including a rapidly growing percentage of women. And far from the media-induced stereotype of gun owners as "Larry the Cable Guy" - today's purchaser is more likely to be a middle-class man or woman with a family.
And they don't stop there. Both men and women are signing up for firearm training classes, and scrambling to get permits to carry handguns for self defense. In many states where training classes are required in order to obtain a carry permit, instructors report a dramatic rise in student applications. Here again, many more women are signing up than in years past.
All of these developments are significant, because what real people do with their own money is a far better indicator of the actual mood of the country than some slanted "survey" conducted by a Democrat-worshiping media. And where people are putting their money today shows how little faith they have in the policies of the Obama administration and his minions in the Congress.
But what are these people worried about? Gun control by an administration with a clear anti-gun bias? Certainly that is a driving force for many, made even more believable by Obama's own Attorney General, who recently blurted out his desire to bring back the ridiculous "assault weapons" ban - a failed policy of demonizing certain types of rifles because they were "scary-looking" to liberals.
But there is more. The nose dive that the economy is taking after Obama's massive spending spree is fueling fears of an increase in crime - a very legitimate concern, as historical crime data show that crime typically does increase as economic conditions worsen.
Another concern is that a confluence of events could cause a serious threat to civil liberties. Everyone remembers the L.A. riots where rampaging mobs were only kept at bay by store-owners, many of them Korean immigrants, who were smart enough to have firearms on hand to protect themselves. But people also remember that many of the guns used by these merchants were later labeled "assault weapons" and declared illegal by the California legislature - owners had to relinquish them or face prosecution.
And we all remember the crime and violence in post-Katrina New Orleans, where residents had their firearms confiscated by police - leaving Louisiana citizens defenseless. Subsequent legal action found the actions of the New Orleans police unconstitutional, and some legal safeguards have been put in place as a result. But gun owners quite legitimately remain dubious.
After all, it is easy to see how a serious economic crisis combined with increased crime would need only a spark to turn the whole situation into full-scale civil unrest, even riots. And under such conditions, the administration would have a strong temptation to use it as an excuse to introduce sweeping and repressive gun control - some even fear that Obama might actually institute marshal law.
Coincidentally, at this very moment HR 45 is being quietly pushed through the Congress. This Democrat-authored bill is nothing but an insidious scheme that would require ALL legal gun owners to register like sex-offenders, including providing government bureaucrats with a list of EVERY GUN YOU OWN, making confiscation during a time of "national crisis" frighteningly easy.
Many people must see the same handwriting on the wall - they look at Obama's hysterically misguided response to an economic downturn, and don't see it as much of a stretch to imagine what Draconian measures he might consider in the event of violent civil strife.
So many Americans are "voting with their dollars" - by selling their stocks...
...and "stocking up" on guns and ammunition.