SPECIAL TO SHOTGUN NEWS<\/p>\n
President-elect Barack Obama hasn\u2019t even taken office yet. But he\u2019s already got one big group of Americans on their feet and moving. <\/p>\n
What is Barack Obama\u2019s position on the rights to bear arms? <\/p>\n
Sen. Obama\u2019s campaign Web site said he \u201crespects the constitutional rights of Americans to bear arms.\u201d It promised he will \u201cprotect the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, transport and use guns.\u201d <\/p>\n
Seeking to reassure gun owners, candidate Obama told a campaign audience in Ohio in October: \u201cI will not take your shotgun away. I will not take your rifle away. I won\u2019t take your handgun away.\u201d <\/p>\n
But the crowds mobbing America\u2019s gun stores and gun shows since Nov. 4 say a large number of Americans — including first-time gun-buyers — don\u2019t believe it. <\/p>\n
In 2003, while serving in the Illinois State Legislature, Barack Obama voted in favor of a bill in the Judiciary Committee that would have made it illegal to \u201cknowingly manufacture, deliver or possess\u201d a so-called \u201csemi-automatic assault weapons,\u201d reports Chris Cox, chief lobbyist for the National Rifle Association. \u201cUnder this bill, a firearm did not actually have to be semi-automatic to be banned. According to definitions in the bill, all single-shot and double-barreled shotguns 28-gauge or larger, and many semi-automatic shotguns of the same size, would be banned as \u2018assault weapons.\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u201cAny Illinois resident who possessed one of these commonly used guns 90 days after the effective date would have had to \u2018destroy the weapon or device, render it permanently inoperable, relinquish it to a law enforcement agency, or remove it from the state.\u2019 Anyone who still possessed a banned gun would have been subject to a felony sentence.\u201d <\/p>\n
In an April television debate, Sen. Obama argued someone else on his staff improperly filled out a 1996 questionnaire stating support for a ban on the manufacture, sale, and possession of handguns — even after ABC News\u2019 Charlie Gibson told Obama \u201cYour writing was on the questionnaire.\u201d <\/p>\n
And the National Shooting Sports Foundation sent out mailers in October warning that — while in The U.S. Senate — Sen. Obama voted for versions of Senate Bill 397 that could have bankrupted gun manufacturers by allowing them to be sued for misuse of their products (\u201cequivalent to holding car makers responsible for drunk driving,\u201d the group said), as well as for a 500 percent tax increase on guns and ammo and a ban on virtually all deer-hunting ammunition. <\/p>\n
Americans aren\u2019t waiting to see which Barack Obama takes office, this month. They\u2019re voting with their feet, and their billfolds. <\/p>\n
The promoter of one Las Vegas gun show over the Thanksgiving weekend advertised on TV and radio that it would be \u201cthe last (local) gun show before the big gun ban.\u201d <\/p>\n
Rhetorical overkill? Gun and ammo buyers didn\u2019t think so. Despite a soft economy, the place was mobbed, with folks lined up half-way around the building to get in. <\/p>\n
Glen Parshall of Bargain Pawn in North Las Vegas told me shortly after Election Day that sales were already \u201cthrough the roof. I can\u2019t get anything. I mean handguns, rifles, ammo, you name it. Ammo\u2019s doubled in (wholesale) price in the past week if you can find it. I had a line of people waiting for me this morning when I showed up for work, waiting to buy AR-15s. Everybody\u2019s fearful of the messiah, very, very much fearful, I mean hanging their heads and cannot believe he got elected fearful. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe had that rush in \u201994 when they passed the first so-called assault weapons ban, but that\u2019s nothing compared to what we\u2019ve got going on now. I mean, people come through the door asking me \u2018If I buy this now, they won\u2019t be able to confiscate it next year, will they\u2019? I tell them \u2018My crystal ball is in the shop.\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u201cMy biggest distributors nationwide, they\u2019ve got a strict allocation of two AR-15 rifles per week per dealer — if they get them. Everybody wants \u2019em. Brownell\u2019s is out of everything: nuts and bolts and screws. I just got done ordering a few barrels and upper receivers a few nights ago, but they\u2019re out of magazines. I can\u2019t buy a Glock anywhere in the country except the oddball ones, weird calibers or the ones in green with orange slides, things like that. I did find a couple ARs last week, match rifles that go for $2,000, I\u2019ve got those coming in for customers. <\/p>\n
\u201cIn October before this all started, my sales were approximately double what they were last October. This week it\u2019s up more than that, and It\u2019d be a hell of a lot higher if I had anything. People are looking for handguns, looking for rifles, looking for magazines. <\/p>\n
\u201cAmmunition? 7.62-by-39 was $180 a case last month, now it\u2019s $350 for a (thousand-round) case. .223 was $300 a case, I haven\u2019t been able to find any, but it would run me over $400 if I could get any. A guy across town got in two pallets\u201d (about 100,000 rounds) \u201cof 9 millimeter, it lasted about a day and a half. It\u2019s absolutely mind-boggling. I\u2019m still selling a lot of revolvers. I can\u2019t get short shotguns.\u201d <\/p>\n
But why do his customers believe the Democrats will impose more gun bans, I asked Mr. Parshall, who\u2019s sold guns and gold in Las Vegas for decades. After all, aren\u2019t crime rates highest precisely where law-abiding citizens are barred from carrying weapons for their own defense? <\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not what they care about. They\u2019re socialists. They want to be in total control.\u201d <\/p>\n
I stopped by Glen\u2019s in person, a few days later, to see if the shelves were really bare. What I noticed there and at a local gun show two weeks later is that buyers are being selective. M-1 Garands are still plentiful at $1,000. (Yes, I remember when they were $350. Wish I\u2019d bought more. But this is not a big hike from a year ago.) Enfield No. 4s and even 1903-A3 turnbolt rifles can still be found — the former at wonderful bargain prices, since Americans consider them \u201cclunky.\u201d There were also plenty of shotguns available. <\/p>\n
\u201cYes, but only with long barrels,\u201d Glen points out. \u201cThe short-barrelled shotguns I can\u2019t keep on the rack.\u201d <\/p>\n
Customers are mainly buying up — and driving up the price of — what they figure the politicians might be first to grab: military-looking semi-auto AR15s and AK-47s, pistol-grip shotguns better suited to clearing a house than to upland game. When I asked for those rounds at the gun show Sunday, I was shown the bare spot on the floor where the pallets had been piled five feet high with boxes the day before. <\/p>\n
My advice? Don\u2019t panic and buy on the up-side of a \u201cbubble.\u201d Stock up gradually, allocating a certain amount per month, the same way you should be allocating a fixed amount to buy and \u201csalt away\u201d gold and silver — the same percentage of your income dad and mom used to set aside in a savings account. <\/p>\n
Buy quality, buy versatility, buy stopping power . . . but buy the more old-fashioned rifles and handguns — and their fodder — that others leave behind. They work, and they\u2019ll hold their value. <\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are terrified of losing their right to protect themselves,\u201d DeWayne Irwin, owner of Cheaper Than Dirt, the large gun store in Ft. Worth, Texas, told the Chicago Tribune. \u201cThe volume is ten times what we ever expected. It started with assault rifles, but at this point, people are buying ammunition, high capacity magazines, Glocks — it\u2019s all flying off the shelf. With the economy the way it is, people are worried about instability. They are scared of civil unrest.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are white people buying assault weapons?\u201d asks Ben Agger, a sociology professor at the University of Texas at Arlington who wrote a book about the Virginia Tech slayings. \u201cI almost hate to say it, but there is a deep-seated fear of the armed black man, because Obama now commands the military and other instruments of the justice system,\u201d Professor Agger told the Chicago Tribune, a newspaper which routinely refers to semi-automatic rifles as \u201cassault rifles,\u201d which they are not. (Try to find the full-auto selector switch.) \u201cThey are afraid Obama will exact retribution for the very deep-seated legacy of slavery,\u201d Professor Agger figures. <\/p>\n
Oh, give me a break. What we\u2019re seeing in the gun stores this winter is not a nation arming itself for revolt, but Americans in a thoroughly defensive mode, stocking up now to avoid the Democratic gun bans they believe are coming. <\/p>\n
What many Americans fear is that Barack Obama — aided by congressional allies like Senators Dianne Feinstein of California and Charles Schumer of New York — will revert to his true, pre-campaign nature come Jan. 20, and once more try to take away Americans\u2019 guns. <\/p>\n
Obama \u201csays he\u2019s in favor of common sense gun laws,\u201d DeWayne Irwin told the Tribune. \u201cWell, what people up north think is common sense is something different from us down here in Texas. The criminals have all this illegal stuff. I don\u2019t want to fight them with a handgun if I can get an AK. I\u2019m entitled to that. I should be able to defend my home.\u201d <\/p>\n
Democrats have tried before, after all. In fact, a notable public figure said after Republicans recaptured Congress in 1994 that that happened precisely because Democrats tried to take away Americans\u2019 guns. <\/p>\n
Who was that insightful analyst? <\/p>\n
Bill Clinton. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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