At the Guns and Ammo Warehouse they are reluctant to admit US President Barack Obama is right about much. But customers enjoy the thought that his campaign comment, that “bitter” small-town Americans are clinging to their guns, has proved more true than the president could have imagined.
Firearms sales have surged in the six months since Obama’s election as millions of Americans have gone on a buying spree that has stripped gun shops in some parts of the country almost bare of assault weapons and led to a national ammunition shortage.
Gun-shop owners and the National Rifle Association (NRA) say the surge is driven by worries that Obama is planning to ban many types of firearms and that the deepening economic crisis will fuel a crime wave.
But groups pressing for greater control on firearms accuse the NRA of funding a massive scare campaign to portray Obama as a gun owner’s worst nightmare.
Chris Howley, manager of the Guns and Ammo Warehouse, in Manassas, Virginia, says sales are up by at least 50 percent since Obama won the election — particularly of assault rifles after the president indicated he would revive a ban on the sale of semi-automatic weapons.
Brett Ross, owner of Grayghost Tactical, in Culpeper, Virginia, says his business is booming despite the economic climate. “All the hand guns are selling and I can’t get more in. I’m wearing a US$3,000 hand gun. That’s expensive and even they are sold out,” he says. “When the guns come in I sell in a day or two what used to sit on the wall for weeks.”
There is a consensus on all sides that the run on weapons began with a belief that Obama would tighten gun laws. Among other things, the NRA is funding a Web site that describes Obama as the “most anti-gun president in history” and accuses him of plotting to close every gun shop in the country.
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence accuses the NRA of whipping up a hysteria that has driven up gun sales.
Chad Ramsey, the Brady Campaign’s senior associate director, says that the NRA has spent US$6.67 million campaigning against Obama.
This feeds more extreme views saying Obama is plotting a “socialist state” that will strip citizens of rights.
Howley says the political fears have been compounded by the economic crisis.
“A lot of our sales are to people who didn’t own guns before. Now they’re buying because of fear of rising crime,” he said.
With the surge in gun sales has come an increase in demand for ammunition creating a nationwide shortage of the most popular bullets used in semi-automatic pistols and military-style rifles.
Gun-shop owners are reluctant to question the thinking driving their profits, but Ross doubts Obama poses a real threat to gun ownership.
“A lot of this is rumors ... I don’t think there’s the political will in Congress for a ban on semi-automatics, and certainly not for more than that. But people believe what they want to believe,” he said.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS