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Taking arms against the recession
Testing a a semi-automatic pistol at a gun store in Las Vegas
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Steve Chiotakis: Here's an industry that may not be recession-proof, but actually recession-enabled. Sales of guns and ammo are on the rise, which is good news for firearms makers such as Smith & Wesson. The Massachusetts-based company reports its earnings after the bell today. From the Entrepreneurship Desk at Oregon Public Broadcasting, here's Mitchell Hartman.
Mitchell Hartman: Even on a sunny day in Portland, the customers pile into Northwest Armory, a busy gun shop. Karl Durkheimer is the owner.
Karl Durkheimer: This is a striker-fired, polymer-framed gun, and it's in 40 Smith & Wesson caliber, and it's ready to fire.
Analysts expect strong sales from Smith & Wesson. Durkheimer isn't surprised. He says their handgun business is doing particularly well.
Durkheimer: Anything that you would be using for personal protection is selling much more than any kind of a sporting arms right now.
Durkheimer says many of the people buying pistols are first-time owners, and he's selling a lot of ammo.
Durkheimer: They're worried about how do I take care of myself, how do I take care of my family, how do I take care of my property. Because, you now, they love their country, and they fear their government.
The FBI reports firearm permits soared nationwide after Democrats swept into office last fall. Gun owners apparently think an assault on gun rights is only a matter of time.
In Portland, I'm Mitchell Hartman for Marketplace.
You have to hand it to the NRA. Mention guns in the press and the letter writers start working overtime.
No mention of the daily massacres we read about in the papers, where some despondent, laid-off worker kills his family and himself on a depressed rampage. The young kid who finds his father's loaded gun and kills his friend - or his father Nor do we hear about the gun dealers arming drug lords in Mexico (and their affiliates Atlanta, etc.)
Yep, the NRA, making sure that there are lots of "cold, dead hands."
Nope, guns don't kill people, people kill people, and the NRA makes sure it keeps on happening!
The Obama Administration's anti-gun stance has pushed me from being indifferent about gun rights, while still respecting those who desire to own them, to becoming a new gun owner.
This is such a fundamental right that I just cannot fathom how anyone would consider infringing upon it. It is not called the Bill of Amendable Rights.
The burst in gun sales has nothing to do with the recession. People are running to the gun stores to specifically buy weapons that they fully expect Obama will try to outlaw. Some out of fear and some out of speculation. There is also a run on ammunition. I have two boxes of the same rifle ammunition (Hunting caliber. They don't even make assault weapons in this caliber). One from this year and one from a few years back. Over 100% increase in price! I overheard one gun buyer say that he was sending a picture of his new gun and his stimulus check to Obama. Another gun store employee told a customer that he won't be able to buy this gun in a few months as he sold an AR15. (semi-auto .223 cal. rifle). There is a closer correlation between how many kids fail grade three standardized tests and crime rates than gun ownership. (That is how Florida decides how many prison beds to build!) Meanwhile the Supreme Court upholds the 2nd ammendment over and over again while lawmakers continue to pass laws that contradict the 2nd ammendment (See Washington D.C.). More wasted time, money and effort on things that were decided in the Bill of Rights. "...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." What is so hard to understand about that.
Of course there's not much of a connection between the number of legally owned guns and crime going up. Bad guys don't get their guns by following the rules. But how do you make it harder for bad guys to get their guns without making it harder for everyone to get them? I don't really know, but I think that a good system of gun control would mean fewer bad guys with guns and fewer good guys having accidents because of inadequate saftey features while still allowing weapons for self-defense and collectors' purposes.
This should not surprise anyone.
First of all crime goes up in a bad economy, and people want to be able to protect themselves.
Secondly, its pretty clear that Obama's reassurances on the campaign trail convinced nobody. Historically, he's never seen a gun control bill he didn't like, and his nominee for Attorney General just announced that he'd really like to ban the most popular rifles in America -- most of the semi-autos used for sports and hunting.
(They look scary so some people call them 'assault weapons'.)
But these high numbers shouldn't upset anyone. The FBI reports for 2007 show crime at a '30-year low' but the number of firearms in private hands goes up by about 4.5 million a year. There's not much (if any) connection between gun ownership and crime.
