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.
Former Nicaraguan president Violeta Chamorro, who brought peace to Nicaragua after years of war and was the first woman elected president in the Americas, died on Saturday at the age of 95, her family said. Chamorro, who ruled the poor Central American country from 1990 to 1997, “died in peace, surrounded by the affection and love of her children,” said a statement issued by her four children. As president, Chamorro ended a civil war that had raged for much of the 1980s as US-backed rebels known as the “Contras” fought the leftist Sandinista government. That conflict made Nicaragua one of
COMPETITION: The US and Russia make up about 90 percent of the world stockpile and are adding new versions, while China’s nuclear force is steadily rising, SIPRI said Most of the world’s nuclear-armed states continued to modernize their arsenals last year, setting the stage for a new nuclear arms race, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said yesterday. Nuclear powers including the US and Russia — which account for about 90 percent of the world’s stockpile — had spent time last year “upgrading existing weapons and adding newer versions,” researchers said. Since the end of the Cold War, old warheads have generally been dismantled quicker than new ones have been deployed, resulting in a decrease in the overall number of warheads. However, SIPRI said that the trend was likely
BOMBARDMENT: Moscow sent more than 440 drones and 32 missiles, Volodymyr Zelenskiy said, in ‘one of the most terrifying strikes’ on the capital in recent months A nighttime Russian missile and drone bombardment of Ukraine killed at least 15 people and injured 116 while they slept in their homes, local officials said yesterday, with the main barrage centering on the capital, Kyiv. Kyiv City Military Administration head Tymur Tkachenko said 14 people were killed and 99 were injured as explosions echoed across the city for hours during the night. The bombardment demolished a nine-story residential building, destroying dozens of apartments. Emergency workers were at the scene to rescue people from under the rubble. Russia flung more than 440 drones and 32 missiles at Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is to visit Canada next week, his first since relations plummeted after the assassination of a Canadian Sikh separatist in Vancouver, triggering diplomatic expulsions and hitting trade. Analysts hope it is a step toward repairing ties that soured in 2023, after then-Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau pointed the finger at New Delhi’s involvement in murdering Hardeep Singh Nijjar, claims India furiously denied. An invitation extended by new Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to Modi to attend the G7 leaders summit in Canada offers a chance to “reset” relations, former Indian diplomat Harsh Vardhan Shringla said. “This is a
RSS