Gun shop owners may not have voted for President-elect Barack Obama, but his recent victory has sent the fire-arm business through the roof.
Between Nov. 3 and Nov. 9, the Federal Bureau of Investigation received 374,000 requests for background checks on gun buyers—49 percent more than the same time last year, CNN reported. Gun sales have also exceeded re-cords that followed Sept. 11 and weeks leading up to the Y2K scare of 2000. However, experts say the trend can-not be documented because local, state and federal agencies do not track gun sales, but dealers claim it’s no hoax.
“It’s been pretty frantic around here the last few weeks. Business has been crazy, but the problem is there aren’t any guns left,” said Salt Lake City Impact Guns salesman Michael Martin. “Suppliers can only produce so many at a time,” he added.
Concern struck gun owners all over the country when Obama’s team released a four-point agenda to address gun violence in the United States on Nov. 7.
Obama’s agenda includes repealing the Tiahrt Amendment, which limits public access to information collected by the federal agents who trace the history of guns used in crimes. He said he supports commonsense measures that respect the Second Amendment rights of gun owners, while keeping guns away from children and from criminals who shouldn't have them. He wants to close the gun show loophole and make guns in this country childproof, and strongly favors making the expired federal Assault Weapons Ban permanent so certain weap-ons are only legal on battlefields, not U.S. streets, reports Barack Obama’s official Web site.
On the campaign trail Obama promised to protect the Second Amendment, but also said he supported the re-institution of a law similar to the 1994 Federal Assault Weapons Act, leaving gun owners worried their gun rights will be threatened. Some gun owners fear he will restrict handguns and raise taxes on ammunition, effec-tively raising the cost of bullets nearly 4 times their normal price.
In reaction to the released agenda, Virginia’s state affiliated association of the National Rifle Association (NRA), and the Virginia Shooting Sports Association (VSSA) President David Adams said, “Only three days af-ter winning the presidency, Obama has declared war on honest law-abiding gun owners by laying out an agenda that seeks to violate the privacy of gun owners and outlaw an entire class of firearms."
Though the NRA supports sensible gun-control issues like stronger background checks to purchase guns, the NRA feels an Obama administration and a Democrat-dominated Congress will result in tough new gun laws.
In response to skeptics about his agenda, Obama said at the Democratic convention, “Don’t tell me we can’t up-hold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals.”
Nonetheless, the NRA has strongly advised its million-plus members to defend their Second Amendment right to bear arms, NRA Spokesperson Ashley Varner said.
“At this point no one really knows what the new administration will do when it comes to gun legislation,” she said, also noting she’s not very hopeful considering Obama’s voting record.
Copyright Brigham Young University 4 Dec 2008
