Anti-ballistic billionaire bully boy Michael Bloomberg is the man financing thetrace.org. The site’s a thinly veiled attempt to “sell” civilian disarmament with “objective” reporting. In other words, it’s a Trojan horse. A trap. A way to lure unsuspecting firearms freedom fence-straddlers into the gun control fold. To that end, Bloomberg’s cracked open his checkbook for one Adam Weinstein. (Click here for TTAG’s greatest hits, Weinstein-wise.) Adam’s a professional anti-gunner with a difference: he owns guns! He’s the perfect anti to disguise his and his benefactor’s anti-gun agenda. But the girl can’t help it . . .
I have an ammunition stockpile. Please don’t be scared.
As a third-generation gun collector and shooting enthusiast, I’ve learned how easy it is to burn through a lot of rounds in a short amount of time. Ten trips to the firing line with an AR-15? That’s a relaxing Saturday afternoon, and a good way to stay proficient and circumspect when it comes to shooting. It’s also 100 rounds of .223 Remington, 30 bucks worth of ammo. If you can find it — which, given the way the ammunition supplies work, is no sure thing.
If you know about guns – and we know you do – the alarm bells are sounding by the end of paragraph two of Sometimes There’s a Perfectly Logical Reason for Hoarding Ammo; What I’ve learned about the economics of ammunition through a lifetime of shooting, and what it means for gun politics.
Namely, the fact that .223 is no longer in short supply. Also, Remington UCR .223 55-grain FMJ runs $7.88 a box at Cabela’s. One hundred rounds cost just under $40, not $30. I’m thinking the picture illustrating this article [above] doesn’t show Adam Weinstein’s ammo “stockpile” and the author hasn’t shopped for ammo quite some time. Anyway, Weinstein soon gets jiggy with it.
But there was another factor at play in that 2008 shortage: the election of Barack Obama, and widespread fears that the new Democratic president would crack down on firearms ownership. The one constant in every fluctuation of ammunition availability and pricing is the deployment of FUD, or “fear, uncertainty, and doubt,” a marketing tool used liberally by gun lobbyists and gun-law reformists alike. To this day, the NRA and other pro-gun groups continue to scare members into believing that Obama is a gun-banning fascist prepared to go house-to-house to take their rights away.
Gun-safety advocates often feed directly into this fear with ideas to further limit the ammo market, giving gun lobbyists the grist they need for their latest scaremongering press releases. Some reform proposals, such as one to require ID from online purchasers who buy more than 1,000 rounds in five consecutive days, seem innocuous to all but the most curmudgeonly of Second Amendment Men. But exorbitant taxes on ammo sales and direct limits on availability can be punitive to everyday gun owners already paying handsome sums to pursue their hobby. Absent clear evidence that limits on ammo sales reduce gun violence — something that deserves more study but is yet to be proven — well-intentioned gun reform advocates help fuel the insecurity that drives ammo hoarding — which, in turn, makes ammo even more valuable.
Weinstein wants to kill your natural, civil and Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms with kindness. But make no mistake: there’s an iron fist inside that velvet glove. Weinstein’s comment about ammo registration legislation being “innocuous to all but the most curmudgeonly of Second Amendment Men” reveals this article, indeed trace.org, as the smiling face of evil. If you didn’t already know. [h/t BA]