Gun owners stockpiling over Fear of Democratic weapons ban

[Lennyjoe]

Guess I'm not the only one noticing the gun shops are a bit fuller these days.

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/11/11/gun-owners-stockpiling-fear-democratic-weapon-bans/

Gun Owners Stockpiling Over Fear of Democratic Weapon Bans
Gun shop owners say business is booming, as customers buy up weapons out of concern that the incoming Democratic administration might impose new gun bans. 
By Catherine Herridge

FOXNews.com

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Handguns and rifles are flying off the shelves at Ted Sabate's gun shop in Kensington, Md.

And while it's not uncommon for gun sales to spike when the economy takes a downturn, Sabate says that's not what he's hearing from customers. According to Sabate, gun enthusiasts are stockpiling because they say they're afraid the incoming Democratic administration will impose new gun bans.

"People are afraid that if there's another ban imposed ... they won't be able to buy them at all," Sabate said. "So they want to get something now before they don't think that they can."

Sabate's shop is not alone. In gun shops across the country, federal background checks are up 9 percent nationally over the last year, suggesting gun sales are increasing as Inauguration Day nears.

"Y2K and 9/11 were real busy, but it pales in comparison to what we've had going on here in the last week," said one Colorado gun dealer. "I've been doing this type of business for about 10 years and I've not -- I've never seen anything like this before."

Though President-elect Barack Obama said repeatedly during the campaign that he supports Second Amendment rights, some gun buyers still are not convinced.

"There's always questions any time there's a new president whether you vote for him or against him. There's gonna be questions about somebody new coming into office, what they're gonna bring into office with him," gun owner Larry Starks said.

Vice president-elect Joe Biden, for instance, was a strong supporter of the assault-weapons ban, signed into law by President Clinton in 1994. Under the ban, domestic gun manufacturers were required to stop making semi-automatic assault weapons and ammunition clips holding more than 10 rounds (except for military or police use). The ban expired four years ago.

Some Democrats say the fear-mongering is simply a ploy by the gun lobby.

"It's pretty clear this has been worked up by the NRA and the gun-shop owners, you know, when they're having 'Obama Sales Days.' I don't think that's coming from Barack Obama," said Eleanor Holmes Norton, the congressional delegate from Washington,  D.C.

The head of the National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre, foresees a split in the Democratic party.

"What you're going to see is a real struggle between the elite wing of the party -- the Manhattan, Georgetown cocktail party circuit, the Los Angeles -- versus the union, rank-and-file members ... the members that are going to (say) wait a minute, my district likes to hunt, my district respects the Second Amendment," LaPierre said.

A spokesman for Obama's transition team said, in a written statement to FOX News, that Obama "respects the constitutional rights of Americans to bear arms," and that he will "protect the rights of hunters and other law-abiding Americans to purchase, own, transport and use guns."

[MicroBalrog]

"What you're going to see is a real struggle between the elite wing of the party -- the Manhattan, Georgetown cocktail party circuit, the Los Angeles -- versus the union, rank-and-file members ... the members that are going to (say) wait a minute, my district likes to hunt, my district respects the Second Amendment," LaPierre said.

Hunting has nothing to do with it.

[makattak]

Hunting has nothing to do with it.

No hunting DOES have something to do with it, but you will notice that it was said in reference to how the Democrats who are supportive of the second amendment will think.

[Gewehr98]

Yeah, it gets thick here in Liberal Madison, too.

See this article in today's Capital Times, which I responded to, and promptly got a drubbing:

http://www.madison.com/tct/news/313877

[MicroBalrog]

It’s funny that Gewehr98 talks about fear-mongering, since that’s the primary tactic of the NRA. I do a bit of hunting, and have subscribed to the occasional outdoor magazine, so I get the moronic mailings from the NRA. It’s no wonder many of the unenlightened among us think the government is going to come for their guns, or that ammunition prices are going to go up 500 percent as the NRA suggested following an Obama election win. I think the sudden increase in guns sales is the result of paranoia induced by the NRA.

'Hunters' like this are part of the problem.

[Bigjake]

Comments in the Capital Times were frightening enough.

 Gew, you're obviously a wimp who doesn't  understand hunting if you need an AK47 (OMG!!) to hunt deer  

I'll give President elect Obama credit for one thing, in the past month I've sold a motorcycle, and manged to replace it with 2 AK variants, a PLR-16 (hey, it looked cool), an M-forgery, and I just ordered a Sig 556.

Little retail therapy does wonders to make one feel better about socialism and no longer having a 2 wheeled toy.  

[Boomhauer]

We've got way too many gunowners...EBR owners, too, who think that the Dems won't touch gun control because it's a "poison pill" and "they learned their lesson in '94". I'm getting tired of hearing that. We EBR owners and shooters have NO friends outside of ourselves...the FUDDs and everyone else are very much against us...

[charby]

Yeah, it gets thick here in Liberal Madison, too.

See this article in today's Capital Times, which I responded to, and promptly got a drubbing:

http://www.madison.com/tct/news/313877

Kind of like trying to teach a pig to sing huh?

[41magsnub]

There are some truly ignorant comments in that article.  Is it trolling or do folks who think they are members of an elite group or something really hate "rednecks" that much?

[French G.]

I read another article that said the sales spike was significant enough for stock analysts to revise upwards Olin's 4th quarter estimate. That's pretty good buying power for a bunch of ignorant clinging rednecks.

[Boomhauer]

There are some truly ignorant comments in that article.  Is it trolling or do folks who think they are members of an elite group or something really hate "rednecks" that much?

It's not trolling. They really think they are members of the sophisticated elite...the "Enlightened" so to speak. They think all gun owners are ignorant rednecks who live in doublewides and beat their wives nightly...that rednecks are just trash that needs to be ruled over...

[AZRedhawk44]

I find myself resisting the urge to go out and buy 2 or 3 SKS rifles and a couple thousand rounds of x39.

"They're cheap now!  Get 'em quick before they're gone!"

bleh.

I won't enjoy shooting them like an AR or M14.  It would take a couple hundred dollars each to accurize them, not to mention the time involved.  Then you have to somehow come up with accurate x39 ammunition. 

The whole point of buying them would be to live out some extraordinarily unlikely Red Dawn fantasy of arming the locals to overthrow our communist overlords.

I think I've finally realized that neighbors who don't own guns anyways... are either going to be unwilling to pick one up on "the day," be worthless as a shooter on "the day," or need to potentially be shot on "the day."  Not that I'm looking forward to or endorsing any of those three options, mind you.  Or that "the day" is nigh.

So, I'll leave the SKS's and AK's and all the other "assault" rifles out there and help the prices stay low.  Hopefully it might entice one of my neighbors to pick one up on a whim, since one of the gun nuts out there didn't snatch it off the market in a fit of hoplophilic compulsion.

Who knows... maybe that neighbor will even pick up an AR, FAL, M14 or more accurate specimen that I might have convinced myself to buy instead of that brace of SKS's and crate of ammo.  And he'll shoot it a lot, learn to love it, become a Rifleman and seek to support the American way of life in any way he can.

I can hope, right?

[Gewehr98]

Let's not be elitist, AZR44.

It appears you'd throw the SKS and AK under the bus to save your choice of AR or M1A. 

I remember Fred of Appleseed fame denigrating AK owners as "cooks", and it bit him in the posterior bigtime.

People are entitled to their preferences, but we're all under a big umbrella as gunowners over the next 4 years.

Anything else is pure Fudd. 

(This from somebody who owns AKs, ARs, M14NMs, BM-59s, and damned near one of everything else...)

[mfree]

I have three AK kits sitting on the table behind me, as well as two recievers and one in the mail already now.

And I fully intend to make some mechanical drawings of the trunnions when I have them stripped out.

[Jim147]

It's not trolling. They really think they are members of the sophisticated elite...the "Enlightened" so to speak. They think all gun owners are ignorant rednecks who live in doublewides and beat their wives nightly...that rednecks are just trash that needs to be ruled over...

I don't beat my wife.
She's a better pistol shot then I am.

And I thought I was in the sophisticated elite?
It's not very elite if both sides are in it.
I'll just have to be in the Redneck Geek Elite.

[Gewehr98]

I have an honest-to-goodness 2 MOA Bulgarian milled receiver SLR-95, and I'd have no problem grabbing it for defensive purposes.  I also have a pre-'94 Colt Competition HBAR, and although it shoots tight little bughole groups, it's too tight in tolerances not to jam up over the course of a couple hundred rounds.  After my 20 year military career, I'm actually somewhat leery of Stoner's little gas gun. Guess which semiauto rifle sits nearest my nightstand?

It pains me to see people blather on about how they wouldn't touch an SKS or AK with a 10-foot pole.  Fine.  Don't do it, it's a free choice thing.  But don't sit there and justify how your particular choice of semiauto military-pattern rifle is so much superior based on group sizes or knockdown power, or how in a Red Dawn situation you'd have the upper hand based on that choice. 

If it gets right down to the down and dirty, do you think somebody's going to hold NRA High Power scorecards up after you make that defensive shot? 

"Dude, you were 1/4 MOA to the right of the aggressor's heart!  If you had a Krieger-barreled, unitized gas system M14NM instead of that crappy-arsed stamped receiver AK, you would've centerpunched the left ventricle no questions asked!"

Puh-leese.   :rolleyes:

IOW, I've seen guys at 3-gun matches clean house with AK variants.  Work with what you have, and learn to be good with it.  And don't worry if Fred calls you a cook because of your gun choice.  Fred has issues.

BTW, if your plan for SHTF involves holding off troops with a single rifle and all the mags you can carry on your person, then I'd highly recommend a Plan B - especially when the laser-guided weapons or artillery are zeroed in on your position.   That would suck during one's last seconds of earthly existence to have to admit, "Nobody told me they'd have smart bombs!"   

[freakazoid]

I plan on picking up a 1,000 round box at the next gun show. Hopefully they are still $200 for a box.

There are some truly ignorant comments in that article.  Is it trolling or do folks who think they are members of an elite group or something really hate "rednecks" that much?

All FUDDS should watch this. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjM9fcEzSJ0

"Dude, you were 1/4 MOA to the right of the aggressor's heart!  If you had a Krieger-barreled, unitized gas system M14NM instead of that crappy-arsed stamped receiver AK, you would've centerpunched the left ventricle no questions asked!"

HAHAHAHAHA 
Good thing mine is a Yugo then, milled receiver. 

[AZRedhawk44]

Let's not be elitist, AZR44.

It appears you'd throw the SKS and AK under the bus to save your choice of AR or M1A. 

I remember Fred of Appleseed fame denigrating AK owners as "cooks", and it bit him in the posterior bigtime.

People are entitled to their preferences, but we're all under a big umbrella as gunowners over the next 4 years.

Anything else is pure Fudd. 

(This from somebody who owns AKs, ARs, M14NMs, BM-59s, and damned near one of everything else...)

Not the intent to be elitist, but more to comment on hoplophilia that seems to be running rampant.

30 million gun owners with 300 million guns does a lot less good than 300 million gun owners with 300 million guns.  At least, from a political perspective or a militia perspective.

Since I've already got the M14 and AR, I don't need to buy a bunch of other stuff in a panic.  I've got my rifles that would do my talking, if it ever came to that ultimate option. 

If I didn't have an autoloader rifle, I'd certainly be right there in line, looking to buy the best I could afford today.

But to all of us with well populated gun safe(s)... I say:  What real value does another Yugo SKS or WASR hold when it populates YOUR safe rather than the closet/under-the-bed/safe of another less equipped American?

The reason you're buying it isn't the preservation of liberty... it's a selfish compulsion.

While selfishness is often a virtue that I admire, I find myself unable to do so in this particular case.  I find a contradiction of morality in it when we come to the issue of the 2A and the militia.  I've never served in the armed forces, but I've heard other veterans talk about sharing their last rounds, MRE's, sidearms, water and bandages in foxholes.  If the current political climate is truly as bad as it is being portrayed... then those of us who have been "in the know" this long already have the guns we need and the ammo we need.  A new batch of Americans are being woken up to the threat to RKBA or to Liberty itself, and they are arming themselves.

I hope that the 50 year old C&R-collecting hobbyist with 4 safes filled with consecutive serial-numbered yet eccentrically different Yugo 59/66's didn't stop a group of 20-something young men from purchasing their first effective rifles, taking a series of classes locally and learning to operate as a fire team.

[freakazoid]

Not the intent to be elitist, but more to comment on hoplophilia that seems to be running rampant.

30 million gun owners with 300 million guns does a lot less good than 300 million gun owners with 300 million guns.  At least, from a political perspective or a militia perspective.

Since I've already got the M14 and AR, I don't need to buy a bunch of other stuff in a panic.  I've got my rifles that would do my talking, if it ever came to that ultimate option.

If I didn't have an autoloader rifle, I'd certainly be right there in line, looking to buy the best I could afford today.

But to all of us with well populated gun safe(s)... I say:  What real value does another Yugo SKS or WASR hold when it populates YOUR safe rather than the closet/under-the-bed/safe of another less equipped American?

The reason you're buying it isn't the preservation of liberty... it's a selfish compulsion.

While selfishness is often a virtue that I admire, I find myself unable to do so in this particular case.  I find a contradiction of morality in it when we come to the issue of the 2A and the militia.  I've never served in the armed forces, but I've heard other veterans talk about sharing their last rounds, MRE's, sidearms, water and bandages in foxholes.  If the current political climate is truly as bad as it is being portrayed... then those of us who have been "in the know" this long already have the guns we need and the ammo we need.  A new batch of Americans are being woken up to the threat to RKBA or to Liberty itself, and they are arming themselves.

I hope that the 50 year old C&R-collecting hobbyist with 4 safes filled with consecutive serial-numbered yet eccentrically different Yugo 59/66's didn't stop a group of 20-something young men from purchasing their first effective rifles, taking a series of classes locally and learning to operate as a fire team.

Well you can always buy me another rifle, :D Actually by having more than one you would be able to hand some out if needed. Also I doubt you would be preventing someone else from getting one, I'de think that they would be able to get in a new one after one sells.

[Silver Bullet]

People are entitled to their preferences, but we're all under a big umbrella as gunowners over the next 4 years.

Anything else is pure Fudd.

I agree with this.

[AZRedhawk44]

Well you can always buy me another rifle,  Actually by having more than one you would be able to hand some out if needed. Also I doubt you would be preventing someone else from getting one, I'de think that they would be able to get in a new one after one sells.

How many autoloaders do you have right now, freak?

How many would you truly be willing to hand out to strangers with no firearms training and dubious allegiance to the concept of the 2A or individual liberty?  People who didn't care enough to even lay in a cheap SKS or Mosin and a box of ammo for it?

As it sits now, aside from arming myself I can arm 2 other people with centerfire autoloaders if they are trustworthy and destitute of arms.  I can then also arm 3 more with centerfire manual action rifles.  And if truly necessary, I can arm 2 more with rimfires.

What am I going to do with a fire team of 7 people?  How am I going to coordinate them?  Feed them?  Motivate them?  Control the direction those rifles are pointed?  Those people obviously have no military or civilian market training if they don't own arms (unless you're assuming a group of unarmed veterans stumbles into my acquaintance... yeah, right).

I don't want to work with those 7 people when/if bad things come to pass.  I want to work with those who cared enough, even on a college ramen budget, to buy a mosin or SKS and learn to shoot it.

And... what's to say that the gun store will get more SKS or other evil rifles in stock?  Executive Orders are about to be reviewed.  Who's to say that Yugos will be available anymore?  Or Saigas?  Or [insert pet rifle here]?

Buying up what could be the last of what's left will have the potential of disenfranchising many future gun owners.  We need to foster that ownership rather than hoard it.

I'm not saying I know how to do that, only that I do know that sticking 3 SKS's (or yet another western NATO rifle) in my safe is probably not the way to accomplish that feat.

[freakazoid]

How many autoloaders do you have right now, freak?

How many would you truly be willing to hand out to strangers with no firearms training and dubious allegiance to the concept of the 2A or individual liberty?  People who didn't care enough to even lay in a cheap SKS or Mosin and a box of ammo for it?

Well I've got the Yugo, and then there is the... Yeah, the Yugo lol. So I can't currently loan any out. But if I did it would only be to people who I would trust with one. It definitely wouldn't be to just any stranger.

And... what's to say that the gun store will get more SKS or other evil rifles in stock?  Executive Orders are about to be reviewed.  Who's to say that Yugos will be available anymore?  Or Saigas?  Or [Barret M82A1, hey I can dream right :D]?

Well right now we don't have that problem, but in the near future... Currently they will be able to re-stock.

I'm not saying I know how to do that, only that I do know that sticking 3 SKS's (or yet another western NATO rifle) in my safe is probably not the way to accomplish that feat.

Well I'm always willing to take up donations, :D

[Gewehr98]

Damn, it's getting thick in here.  This isn't terribly good for the appearance of APS in general, but I gotta ask:

AZRH44,

What exactly are you planning on doing?

Fight a one-man guerrilla war?

Sustain a holding action until reinforcements arrive?

Force an entire regiment of U.N. Blue Helmets to make a retreat with individual sub-MOA shots?

Just run around and shout, "Wolverines!" at the top of your lungs?

Supply an Army of 7 for a long-term entrenchment against an assault by ObamaCorps?

Do you have an egress plan against a numerically superior and better equipped force?

Or do you plan on dying at first fire, solely on the principle of the thing?

What's Fred teaching you guys these days?

At last count, I could outfit a unit of 200 or so with their own firearms and a goodly supply of ammunition.

That doesn't mean I plan on doing so, nor do I consider it my civic duty.

Truthfully, I don't plan on making that romantically glorious stand in the face of certain death, but it doesn't mean I'm not smart enough to choose my battles carefully.  If things really get that bad over the next 4 years (and I seriously doubt it), I've got my own idea of how to survive, based on my own 20+ year military career and survival schooling.  To each their own, but let's leave the tinfoil helmets out of the picture. You're talking a "Patriots" type of scenario, or "Unintended Consequences" if you want a different author.  If that's what you believe is going down in the new administration, then more power to you. You'd best stock up on MREs, potable water, stable hydrocarbon fuels, alternative energy sources, encrypted comm gear, the whole nine yards. 

Oh, and don't forget the tactical wheelbarrow.  You ain't squat without a tactical wheelbarrow...

[freakazoid]

Just read through the whole article,

"The one thing that they agree strongly with us on is that it's too easy for dangerous people to get guns in this country," Helmke said. "I guess if you're a dangerous person you might want to run out there and buy some more, but otherwise you should be OK."

 

AZR44,

What exactly are you planning on doing?

Wasn't he saying that he DIDN'T plan on purchasing a bunch of firearms?

Just run around and shout, "Wolverines!" at the top of your lungs?

I'll probably do that just for shits and giggles.

Oh, and don't forget the tactical wheelbarrow.  You ain't squat without a tactical wheelbarrow...

Still need to get that. But until then I still got my tactical rock, 


"It's all about appearances, isn't it? Yippee! Feel-good legislation at its best, fear mongering at its worst. Which reminds me - I'll have to put a webcam on my gun safes, because those evil things have the potential to sneak out and fill the streets with blood otherwise..."

lol, You tell 'em man, :D

[AZRedhawk44]

Nothing of the sort, Gewehr.

Absolutely nothing like that.

I'm talking about the culture war, not the UC-style guerilla assasinations or the Patriots-style compound living, fighting the UN aggressors.

EBR's and combloc autoloaders need to become household guns.

They won't become household guns if gun nuts go out and buy them all up, and an executive order comes down barring importation of more of them.

We're losing the culture war everytime some idiot with a WASR or detachable magazine SKS shoots up a mall, and the nooz reports it as an "AK-47 style assault rifle."

We, the gun nuts, know better.  But the rest of America doesn't, because they don't have the exposure to these rifles.

Let's assume that all the importers have a total of 5 million combined SKS, AK, PSL, FAL, CETME and other foreign autoloaders in inventory.

We, the gun nuts, can buy those up at a rate of 1 or 2 for each of us.  That leaves the domestic manufactured autoloaders, predominantly the AR-15 industry and a handful of M14 makers, to fill the gaps for the non gun nuts.

They won't pay the cost of those rifles, but they might see the value of a combloc surplus in the safe.

I don't want a tactical wheelbarrow.  I don't have a neighborhood mall reconquista team for the zombie insurrection.  And my duct tape and trauma plates are on backorder still.

If you re-read my posts in this thread, everything has been directed towards the culture war, and not towards a run-and-gun conflict against our government.  Getting the guns in the hands of new gun nuts.  Expanding the gun culture.