The talk of new gun control
measures that has followed Friday's mass shooting in a Newtown, Conn.,
elementary school has gun buyers rushing to the nearest store and
picking up new weapons, according to gun store owners and state police
background check information.
On Saturday, Virginia state
police fielded 4,166 requests for background checks, a 42 percent
increase from the same Saturday last year and the highest number of
transactions received in a single day since the program was implemented
in 1989. Sunday's 1,828 background checks in Virginia represented a 43
percent increase from a year ago. Colorado also set a one-day record for
background checks on Saturday with 4,200, the highest number since the
program began in 1999.
Paul Decker, the owner of
Hunters' Heaven in Hayes, Va., said he saw a big spike in sales over the
weekend, with many customers buying the AR type of rifle allegedly used
in the Newtown shooting. Gun control advocates want AR and other
semi-automatic rifles banned, returning to the Bill Clinton-era policy
that was the law of the land from 1994 to 2004. Also flying off the
shelves were high-capacity magazines and ammunition, over fears Congress
could vote to limit them.
"The people that would normally buy a box [of ammo] are buying four or five boxes," Decker said.
Virginia
State Police spokeswoman Corinne Geller stressed that the background
check figures are only a snapshot of the larger gun-sales picture,
because only licensed gun dealers need to perform background checks. A
person can buy guns through a classified ad or other private sellers,
and there would be no record of it. Also, the state has no way of
knowing how many weapons are sold per background check, so the figure
does not describe the total number of guns sold last weekend in the
state.
Richard Sprague, the owner of Sprague's Sports in Yuma, Ariz., said
he saw a "noticeable increase in business" over the weekend. Sprague
said the only other time he saw such a spike was immediately after
President Barack Obama was elected president in 2008, when many gun
owners feared he would push for restrictive gun laws.
Decker also said his business
boomed in the year after Obama's election: He experienced a 50 percent
increase in sales. "The '08 election was like the Brady Bill, the Crime
Bill and Y2K all wrapped together and then doubled," he said,
referencing two pieces of gun control legislation.
It's common for gun sales to
spike after a mass shooting, because that is when politicians and others
tend to push for gun control legislation. Democratic Sen. Diane
Feinstein of California said Monday she will introduce a bill to ban
dozens of assault weapon models and any magazines that hold more than 10
rounds of bullets. LINK
Posts
