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The day after Motor City Madman Ted Nugent endorsed presidential candidate Mitt “Two Shotguns” Romney comes news that the firearms industry is bracing for another sales surge. American gun owners are worried that The One will use his executive powers to grab guns once he’s freed from the need to face another public plebiscite. So they’re buying more guns. Again. Still. “It’s fixing to happen again. I don’t know if it will be to the same extent it was before, but I see it coming,” Cheaper Than Dirt gun store owner DeWayne Irwin told startelegram.com. “We’re at the top of the roller coaster and we’re about to plummet down the side.” I’m not 100% on that analogy but point taken: Obama remains America’s Greatest Gun Salesman™. Or does he . . .
Some say the uptick in sales at gun stores could also be linked to anything from the arrival of tax refunds to a spending spree by fans of the National Geographic Channel’s Doomsday Preppers show, which chronicles people preparing for the end of the world.
How scientific is that? Never mind. Even if we don’t know how many Americans are stockpiling guns and ammo to prepare for economic collapse (or super volcano eruptions or EMP attacks), anecdotal evidence from TTAG’s Armed Intelligentsia indicates that paranoia and pistols go together like ice storms and generator sales.
And if our economy is in deep deep doo-doo, balancing on the edge of the “Looters Will Be Shot” precipice, the President shoulders a lot of the blame for running-up the debt like my second wife’s molybdenum AMEX. Well, at least for gun-clinging conservatives; the kind of buyers who conserve ammunition by the case. Obama’s re-election will do nothing to ease their fevered minds—or cool their red hot gun-buying checkbooks.
Mr. Obama cannot, however, take any credit for the liberalization of concealed carry laws throughout the U.S., a trend spurred by recent Supreme Court rulings. The resulting increase in self-defense-related gun sales has completely reversed the traditional primacy of long gun over handgun sales. Scribe Anna M. Tinsely missed that one, opting instead for the “death merchant” meme.
Some in the industry cite a variety of reasons for the rise in gun and ammo sales, including that manufacturers are better marketing guns — primarily pink ones — to women.
Yeah, that’s it: firearms marketers have been focusing their efforts on creating and selling pink guns to style-obsessed females. [Note to Ms. Tinsley: call the NSSF on 203-610-9909 for gun industry stats.]
Not to go all self-fulfilling prophecy on you, but now might be a good time to stock up on ammo, which was in short supply the last time The Big O’s national tent meeting rolled into town. As for a new Assault Weapons Ban, yup, I’d be worried about that too . . .
Fort Worth’s Mark Greene, a hunter and former member of Gun Owners for Obama, said he’s tired of people using this argument to influence Obama’s re-election bid.
“I still own guns and I still support Obama,” he said. “And I still have very little in common with the fear mongers and bunker-mentality gun nuts who will tell any lie they think they can get away with to try and bring down this president they hate so vehemently and irrationally.”
[Another quick note to Ms. Tinsley: I can’t find a web address or any info “Gun Owners for Obama.” If you could ping guntruth@me.com with contact details for this shadowy group, I’d be most appreciative.]
Of course, Mr. Greene does have something in common with the bunker mentality gun nuts: guns. Even a lapsed Gun Owner for Obama acolyte can’t get away from the law of supply and demand. The only thing Greene could do to help stabilize gun and ammo prices and availability: disarm. Hang on; we wouldn’t want him to do that would we?