U.S. Sees Ongoing Spike in Gun, Ammo Sales: 'I've Never Seen Anything Like It'

I come from good country bumpkin very-small-farmer and country-bum stock (as in, I'm the first generation from one side, and the second gen on the other, to not be wholly in those categories) and love the hell out of getting beers in the worst-looking country bars I can find, entirely for the company, so I was being a bit coy about my level of knowledge. Plus, not my entire social circle is left-wingers.

> If this is referring to a certain January 6th incident, for the most part the uproar was caused by a belief that democracy wasn't respected.

Of course it was for what they thought were good reasons. No-one on the front lines of the bad sort of revolution thinks their cause is bad, their information wrong, or that the likely outcome of their actions will be that things get worse, unless they're nihilistic paid mercenaries. Leaders are another matter, of course.

> If we're completely honest, many people in Urban areas purchased guns around the same time the mostly peaceful BLM protests coincided with random arson events and shootings. Everybody seems to support it right up until the point people are on their streets with pitch forks, at which point it gets real.

Yeah, that's probably true too, just reporting the explicit reason folks in my circle are buying them. The right-wingers I know already had guns—lots and lots and lots of them. That aside from hunters of all political persuasions who, obviously, already owned guns and/or bows. The ones getting guns in the last ~2 years haven't been buying them to shoot animals.

[EDIT] Further, I'm not necessarily claiming that my liberal friends buying guns in case social cohesion breaks down, accelerationist "let's do an actual race war" people succeed, or right-wing authoritarians become a real everyday threat, are rational in doing so. But that is why they're buying guns. If anything, I think the right-wingers I know have slowed down their gun purchases, because it's harder to justify buying your tenth firearm when prices are elevated.

[EDIT EDIT] Also, the reasons for "blue tribe" buying guns in blue-tribe areas may differ significantly from why they buy them in red-tribe areas, like where I am. Not a clue about that.

There’s a generation of adults who grew up with a gradual decreasing of crime rates throughout their lifetime. A regression to where we were 20 years ago is cause for some alarm.

In my part of the US, the rate of “burglar bars” on windows have slowly gone down and I see no uptick. This leads me to give credence the “crime down” hypothesis based on people’s behavior at scale.

On the other hand I see more preparation for civil disaster and disorder. Firearms may be more part of that story than a reflection of people’s thoughts about the potential for victimization during a “normal” day.

Guess it's all narrative shaping though eh. It's good we have people like you to police little old me from speaking out against your chosen narrative.

Enjoy your spike.

Now whether you agree with the legitimacy around said regulatory framework, and the severe magnification of sentences for what amounts to glorified tax evasion, and it being a poll tax (a tax which renders a Constitutionally guaranteed right conditional), and in light of the 2nd Amendment, that is a completely different story.

Again. As mentioned elsewhere in the thread, I try to avoid this now, because the regulations are as fickle as the night is long, and I despise having to stay tuned to figure out if some swath or another of the population is in threat of getting turned into felons overnight because someone in the Executive branch got into a tizzy. Nobody else seems to lose sleep over that sort of thing, but I do.

https://abc7chicago.com/chicago-shootings-gun-violence-polic...

I guess they should have applied the "You can always retreat, delegate to a specialist...etc"

You may argue about whether chicago police department is "capable" - they certainly have very strict gun laws which don't seems to be preventing this gun violence. But if they are not capable, "retreating" doesn't seem to be helping these people. Or are they doing it wrong?

A criminal who plans to intrude will still intrude. One case you have a chance to defend yourself or family, the other you’re left to “retreat” (which I think, perhaps controversially, if it’s your property you shouldn’t be obligated to retreat it if someone is criminally trying to enter). That also assumes you can retreat.

In a vacuum sure the arms race would escalate, but this assumes infinite resources. If I get a pistol, then the lower “bar of entry” becomes a pistol for the intruder.

If I get a heavier weapon, such as a shotgun, the intruder is gonna have a harder time (even if slightly) buying or finding the more costly (resource wise) weapon.

what I think is more likely to happen, is unless you have an organized gang, solo criminals will just go for easier crimes. They won’t risk entering a neighborhood that is armed.

Because then the cost to enter the house, and come out safe/successful, drastically increases once the home owner has capable self defenses.

I meant perceived as in, things seem worse than they are, versus someone thinking “hey QAnon said my neighbors are false flags, let’s go” (hyperbolic, but you get the point)

I understand the confusion though without the assumption laid out.

Anecdotally, I'd say yes.

The three ranges in closest proximity to me have hour long waits for lanes on weekends. Everywhere, dealers are consistently sold out of "beginner" type firearms: ruger mark iv's, 10/22s, sr22s, etc. It is a similar story with magazines for these types of firearms, and I doubt demand for these is being driven by existing gun owners (who likely already have them).

I also happened to order a new safe recently, and every dealer in my metro area had zero inventory on hand. The best you can get is an order allocation, or buying one of the safes they already have on order with an expected delivery of 1-3mo. Part of this is certainly supply chain disruption, but I heard the same story over and over again that demand was through the roof.

Amen. The 'upsides' of owning a gun don't outweigh the horrible potential consequences for myself and others around me. I'm really glad that guns are not as prominent in my country compared to the US.

There are effectively no primers for sale right now for common calibers, and that’s been the case since ~February of 2020.

Oh, and it’s not “black powder”, but “smokeless powder”. There are tons of varieties, and most are only suitable for one or two applications. Pistol powder is different from rifle powder, for example.

In old ammunition, the primary concerns are the corrosive residue the ammunition will leave behind, rounds that won't go off at all, or rounds with a delayed reaction ("hangfire".) Hangfires can be dangerous if they go unnoticed, but aren't spontaneous "gun explodes in your face" events. You're also fairly likely to experience hangfires and rounds that simply don't work when shooting new production cheap 22lr; rimfire is notoriously unreliable and when rimfire ammunition is made cheap, you'll encounter 'duds' often enough. If you're at a gun range just trying to have fun, this is generally little more than an annoyance.

Centerfire ammunition is more reliable in general. With ancient centerfire ammunition, you have to wonder whether the ammunition was ever any good in the first place. A century ago, there were plenty of companies/countries making really shitty rifle ammunition that you might still find for sale today. That ammunition was never good at the time, and age hasn't made it any better. But some companies/countries were also making perfectly good ammunition a century ago, and that ammunition is generally just as reliable today as it ever was. But it will leave behind hydrophilic corrosive salts in your gun, so maybe think twice before shooting lots of it then neglecting to clean your gun.

  I'm thrilled at the spike.

Do you own any firearms?

Do you use illegal drugs?

Have you ever had an abortion?

How do you not expect a substantial portion of your respondents to either refuse to answer or simply lie when you ask questions like that?