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April 02, 2009
Nationwide Shortage Leaves Gun Owners Scrambling For Ammo
There was ammo on these shelve.........
Nationwide shortage leaves gun owners scrambling, paying extra
Reports from across the country confirm that gun owners seeking to stock up on ammunition are facing the same list of problems: shortages, back orders, elevated prices and a long line of people staring at empty shelves where boxes of bullets used to be.
"Just about everywhere I've been, it's sold out," Darren Lauzon told KMGH-TV in Denver after he failed to find ammunition for his new .45 pistol. "Wal-Mart, Sportsman's, wherever."
"Folks have been experiencing shortages all over the country," a spokesman for the National Rifle Association told the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat in California. "Since the election there has been a great increase in firearms sales as well. Background checks are up, enrollment in training and safety classes is up, concealed weapons permits are up, gun sales are up – and ammo manufacturers can't keep up with demand."
Gun shops and retailers agree: the press for ammunition is emptying their shelves quicker than the manufacturers can restock them.
"We're probably selling ammunition right now at a 200 percent increase over normal sales," said Richard Taylor, manager at the Firing Line in Aurora, Colo.
"We've probably got over 4,000 cases of ammunition on back order currently. But we just don't know when we're going to receive that," Taylor told KMGH. "Y2K was just like a little blip on the radar screen compared to this. I mean, it's just phenomenal."
A Wal-Mart salesman told Ross Kaminsky of Human Events, "We used to get shipments almost every day. Now we only know we'll have it when we see it. I get at least a half-dozen calls a day asking for ammunition, especially for handguns, and when it arrives, the customers buy everything."
The shortages are creating multiple complications for both gun owners and sellers.
KSNW-TV in Wichita reports the cost of ammunition in many Kansas stores has risen between $5 to $15 more per box over the last six months, and even still, many retailers are limiting the amount of ammunition customers can buy.
"It is a bad problem," Bill Vinduska with Bullseye Firearms told the station, "because we really would rather be able to supply our customers their needs; and not being able to do that is really a problem."
"When you're turning down two or three thousand, four thousand dollars a day in sales because you just can't get the product, that's significant," said Burnie Stokes from Panhandle Gunslingers to KFDA-TV in Amarillo, Texas.
Jere Jordan, general manager Midsouth Shooters Supply in Clarksville, Tenn., a company that specializes in mail-order sales of ammunition and reloading supplies, told the Associated Press that his company has sold out of ammunition commonly used in semiautomatic pistols and popular military rifles.
And even though Midsouth is taking orders for supplies used by hobbyists to handload cartridges, Jordan has no idea when they'll be filled.
"The wait? We're not even guessing on the wait anymore," Jordan said. "It's exceeding 60 days."
Who's to blame for shortages?
According to Lawrence Keane, senior vice president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade organization representing both manufacturers and retailers, the shortages pinching store owners aren't the fault of their suppliers.
"We have heard from all across the country that there is a tremendous shortage of ammunition," Keane told the AP. "We've heard this from the manufacturers, that their customers are calling them trying to get supplies for inventory, and that the manufacturers are going full-bore, pardon the pun."
The shortages, for the most part, stem from a widespread surge in customer demand for ammunition, a surge many link to the election of Barack Obama and the belief, perpetuated in part by the National Rifle Association, that the new president favors limiting the right to bear arms codified in the Second Amendment.
"Sen. Obama's statements and support for restricting access to firearms, raising taxes on guns and ammunition and voting against the use of firearms for self-defense in the home are a matter of public record," declares Chris W. Cox, chairman of the NRA's Political Victory Fund. "Barack Obama would be the most anti-gun president in our nation's history."
Wild Thing's comment.........
If President Reagan or Bush were President there would be a run on ammo. Conservatives are not stupid and sure some buy a lot more ammo then others, cost enters in too, how much a person can afford. But I am all for people buying ammo if they can afford it, learn how to store it and be as safe as possible.
Obama is not making our country safer, by all the things he has done from day one he has put us all in danger.
Initeresting article and I love the response by Chris W. Cox.
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at April 2, 2009 05:45 AM
Comments
People are scared. They're afraid of the "goon squads" that will soon be in play due to this "mandatory volunteering" crap. Your home is your property but we're all afraid that they'll just ignore that and come into your home and push you around. But, I wonder, if we defend ourselves with a gun, are we going to be put in the gulag and have our kids taken away from us?
Posted by: Lynn at April 2, 2009 08:26 AM
I haven't been able to get 9mm or 45ACP ammo at Wall Mart for a couple weeks now. It sells as fast as they get it. Fortunately, I've been stocking up since Obama got elected.
Posted by: BobF at April 2, 2009 11:22 AM
Just yesterday I went to the local Wal-Mart to see if they had any 7.62/308 for my M1A. Wow, I looked at their ammo shelves and they were essentially bare except for shotgun shells. They had part of a row of 22's and about 10 boxes of rifle ammunition, no pistol ammo at all. It just so happened that three of the rifle ammo boxes were 308, so I scarfed them up along with the last brick of 22.
People on the right are taking the anti-gun history of Obama and Holder seriously. These people are buying guns and ammo in record amounts. Luckily I considered this possibility a year ago and bought ahead of the stampede.
I hope these sales allow a glimmer of reality to shine through the muddled consciousness of Obama and the others and make them think of what might happen if a major gun grab occurs. Already, 65 Democrat members of Congress have signed a letter to Obama stating they would not vote for major gun legislation or violation of the Second Amendment. I don't know if these Dems saw the light and are afraid of losing their seats in Congress or possibly their lives in a revolt.
Posted by: TomR at April 2, 2009 11:30 AM
That Obama and the DNC do not demonstrate that they are in conformance to the constitution's requirements for the office of president does not make people feel good about their future obedience to any other part of the constitution. Of course, if they are governing unconstitutionally then they are already at war on the United States.
Posted by: Avitar at April 2, 2009 01:56 PM
Haven't been able to buy any .45, .357, .223 in my area, for those with .357's you can use 38 Specials, even 38 short. Get what ever you can.
Avitar is spot on.
Posted by: Jack at April 2, 2009 02:46 PM
Are they just behind on orders ? Or is there something more sinister going on here.
Posted by: Mark at April 2, 2009 04:16 PM
Lynn, I would make sure first, like you
said this is something that a person
would have to know they are protected
by law in their State even. It sure is
scary.
Posted by: Wild Thing at April 2, 2009 11:55 PM
BobF.,thanks for sharing about that.
When I read this article I wondered
how all of you were with the stores
near you.
Posted by: Wild Thing at April 2, 2009 11:58 PM
Tom, oh wow thank you for the information
about the Dems letter to Obama. I am so
glad to hear about that, I always felt
that even dems like to protect themselves
as well as target practice etc.
Posted by: Wild Thing at April 3, 2009 12:01 AM
Avitar, I agree so much. When I saw and
posted that video of Obama from 2001, the
interview where he spoke of his feelings
about our Constitution, it was like an
alarm going off of that is to come.
Posted by: Wild Thing at April 3, 2009 12:04 AM
Jack, thank you for the information about
the .357's.
Posted by: Wild Thing at April 3, 2009 12:06 AM
Mark, I think it is just more people then
ususal buying guns I bet too. Plus all
the other things involved, stocking up,
and extreme concern about not being able
to get ammo.
Posted by: Wild Thing at April 3, 2009 12:09 AM
