New Poll Shows Surge in Support for Gun Control
Saturday, 29 December 2012 10:27
By Matt Pearce, Los Angeles Times | Report
<http://truth-out.org/news/item/13608-new-poll-shows-surge-in-support-for-gun-control>
UN's Last Stand on Arms Trade Treaty
Saturday, 29 December 2012 10:36
By Thalif Deen, Inter Press Service | Report
<http://truth-out.org/news/item/13609-uns-last-stand-on-arms-trade-treaty>
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<http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/fearful-ban-frenzied-buyers-swarm-gun-stores-18086623#.UOAdo9x91i9>
Fearful of Ban, Frenzied Buyers Swarm Gun Stores
By By JOSEPH PISANI AP Business News Writer
NEW YORK December 29, 2012 (AP)
The phones at Red's Trading Post wouldn't stop ringing. Would-be
customers from as far away as New York wanted to know if the Twin
Falls, Idaho gun shop had firearms in stock. Others clamored to find
out if their orders had been shipped.
Overwhelmed, gun store manager Ryan Horsley had to do what no
employee would ever think of doing just days before Christmas: He
disconnected the phone lines for three whole days.
"We had to shut everything off," says Horsley, whose family has owned
Red's Trading Post, the state's oldest gun shop, since 1936. "We were
swamped in the store and online."
The phones at gun shops across the country are ringing off the hook.
Demand for firearms, ammunition and bulletproof gear has surged since
the Dec. 14 massacre in Newtown, Conn., that took the lives of 20
schoolchildren and six teachers and administrators. The shooting
sparked calls for tighter gun control measures, especially for
military-style assault weapons like the ones used in Newtown and in
the Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooting earlier this year. The
prospect of a possible weapons ban has sent gun enthusiasts into a
panic and sparked a frenzy of buying at stores and gun dealers
nationwide.
Assault rifles are sold out across the country. Rounds of .223
bullets, like those used in the AR-15 type Bushmaster rifle used in
Newtown, are scarce. Stores are struggling to restock their shelves.
Gun and ammunition makers are telling retailers they will have to
wait months to get more.
Store owners who have been in the business for years say they have
never seen demand like this before.
When asked how much sales have increased in the past few weeks,
Horsley just laughed.
"We haven't even had a chance to look at it," he says. Horsley spends
his days calling manufacturers around the country trying to buy more
items for the store. Mainly, they tell him he has to wait.
Franklin Armory, a firearm maker in Morgan Hill, Calif., is telling
dealers that it will take six months to fulfill their orders. The
company plans to hire more workers and buy more machines to catch up,
says Franklin Armory's President Jay Jacobson.
The shortage is leaving many would-be gun owners empty handed.
William Kotis went to a gun show in Winston-Salem, N.C., last weekend
hoping to buy a rifle for target shooting. Almost everything was sold
out.
"Assault rifles were selling like crazy," says Kotis, who is
president and CEO of Kotis Holdings, a real estate development
company based in Greensboro. "People are stockpiling."
He left without buying anything.
Luke Orlando's parents were able to get him the 12-gauge shotgun he
wanted for Christmas to bird hunt, but his uncle wasn't as lucky.
"At Christmas dinner, my uncle expressed outrage that after waiting
six months to use his Christmas bonus to purchase an AR-15, they are
sold out and back ordered over a year," says Orlando, 18, a student
at the University of Texas.
No organization publicly releases gun sales data. The only way to
measure demand is by the number of background checks that are
conducted when someone wants to buy a firearm. Those numbers are
released by the Federal Reserve Bureau every month. Data for December
is not out yet. But the Federal Bureau of Investigation says that it
did 16.8 million firearm background checks as of the end of November,
up more than 2 percent from a year ago.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation, which handles background checks
for the state, can't keep up with the number of requests it is
getting. The bureau has pulled staff from other units and increased
its hours, says spokesperson Susan Medina.
Many firearm dealers and manufacturers say that Obama's comments
since the Newtown school shooting are driving demand.
James Zimmerman of SelwayArmory.com, a website that sells guns,
ammunition and knives, says that sales really took off on Dec. 19
after President Barack Obama held a White House press conference
announcing that Vice President Joe Biden would lead a team tasked
with coming up with "concrete proposals" to curb gun violence.
That day, one customer ordered 32,000 rounds of ammunition from
SelwayArmory.com, worth close to $18,000. The order had to be shipped
from the company's Lolo, Mont., office to Kentucky on a freight truck.
"I've done more sales in the week after the 19th than I have the
whole year," says Zimmerman, who launched SelwayArmory.com in 2009.
At Lady Liberty Gunsmithing LLC in Atlantic City, N.J., a customer
called last week asking if a pistol he wanted was available. When he
was told there was only one left, he drove more than two hours from
Newark, N.J., to buy it that same day.
"People want guns now even more than ever," says Guy Petinga II,
whose father opened the store above his home in 1996.
Others saw demand immediately after the shooting.
Bullet Blocker, which makes bulletproof vests, briefcases and insert
panels, saw sales of its children's backpacks suddenly jump.
"That's how I found out about the tragedy. I saw the sales rise and
then turned on CNN," says Elmar Uy, vice president of business
operations at the Billerica, Mass., company.
Bullet Blocker has sold about 50 to 100 bulletproof backpacks a day
since the shooting, up from about 10 to 15 in a regular week. The
children's backpacks, which are designed to be used as shields, cost
over $200 each.
"I've never seen numbers like this before," says Uy.
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