US sales of guns and ammunition soar amid coronavirus panic buying

A lot of media trying to push this as hillbillies/rednecks wanting to defend their hoard of toilet paper are short-sighted.

Panic & fear cause people to make unpredictable poor decisions, and you never know if that could affect you and your family. In the USA, you have a right to defend yourself and these people are just choosing to do that. Please don't demonize them for just wanting to protect themselves and their families.

Be safe and watch out for each other.

Personally I've been wanting to do a bulk ammo buy for a while, and realized there was going to be a run so I dumped 1000 bucks into some ammo for all the calibers I own.

I'm also in the process of building an AR-10, and have slowly been accumulating parts. Decided to pull the trigger on some of the more expensive parts this week because I caught some good deals.

It's not all panic buying.

As a non-American, I’m imagining this scene playing out with armed people.

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2020/03/07/coronavi...

Far from making fun of Americans, I am scared for them. This crisis has already proven how irrational people can be, and rapidly we revert to basic tribalism, giving in to base instincts. Adding (even more) guns to this mix is a bad sign. But in an environment where trust in authority has been systematically destroyed, it is, a sadly understandable response.

Stay safe, and remember that most of the people you might be defending yourselves from are probably just as desperate (if not more so) than you.

Trust in the system is at an all-time low. At Amherst College, the administration decided shortly before Spring Break that students should not return after the break in order not to bring back coronavirus to campus and spread it there. There would be accommodations when necessary.

There was a sit-in to protest against the very sensible decision. One would think that at the second-best college in the nation the administration would be aware that some students may have difficulties coming up with emergency funds for travel, that there may be travel bans or that some students might not wish to return to unstable living conditions at home. But the students did not trust the system to work for them.

Some stage sit-ins, others buy firearms.

In a stressed society with low friction access to fierams, buying an assault rifle is just working your way towards Nash equilibrium.

Terrifying.

Post your loadouts HN

Primary : MK18 BLOCK 3 URGI (https://i.redd.it/tgnpp2xi82q11.png) Secondary: Roland Special

During that time in Canada we buy toilet paper...

The USA is absurd.

Between the economy, the oil price war, the politicization of politics, and most pressingly the virus, 2019ncov is proving to be the potential trigger for wide scale geopolitical change and possibly insecurity. States are going to go into quarantine one by one with little to no coordination. Governments and law agencies will be commandeering emergency powers. We are sitting on a major pressure point and it's impossible to predict the outcome, but there is a high likelihood of political instability and/or violence, even within America.

If the economy doesn't recover soon, people are going to grow increasingly hungry and desperate without radical federal measures. It is prudent to be prepared to defend yourself now because this is shaping up to be the kind of scenario where you really cannot rely on first responders to protect you.

Edit: I meant "polarization of politics" but autocorrect may be hinting at something profound...