People have been stockpiling since the beginning of the pandemic. Every gun shop and website is bare.

Want (for example) some premium .38 Special hollowpoints? Just go to Gunbroker. You'll have to pay $2 to $3 a round, but it's there.

I haven't had the need to buy any ammo for my own use since the pandemic started, since I stocked up when prices were low.

There are some places to get it but the price gouging is ridiculous.

The gun and ammo industry starts these rumors every 4 years

Our signature pieces of legislation are bans on "assault weapons" and magazines that hold 11+ rounds. It's in the damn party platform.

The gun-control groups aren't very good at controlling guns but they do a damn fine job of selling them and getting Republicans elected.

Lotsa luck with that.

Sorry if that's inconvenient or troubling to you.

...for many years.

Also, 'effective gun control' has been said to be 'just around the corner' pretty much since I started at DU
back in the aughts.

The gun-control groups aren't very good at controlling guns but they do a damn fine job of selling them and getting Republicans elected.

Also, the pandemic, coupled with the riots last summer, have worked to drive up demand. As a proud liberal AND gun owner, I realize that continued screeching about banning weapons, based on their appearance instead of functionality, is a perpetual loser. Also, banning a magazine, based on an arbitrarily derived number, makes no sense. Why 10? Why not 9, or 11? It's easier to sell an idea if you can support it with some facts.

For those of you who want to insist that the Framers only meant for us to have single-shot muskets, I could counter that they also meant only to protect a free press if the message was printed by hand, using quill pens, or perhaps on manual, movable type presses. Claiming that semi-automatic weapons aren't protected would be like claiming that television, radio, or internet speech is not protected by the First Amendment, because those things didn't exist in 1787.

Why not 1? If the logic holds, that would save 9 lives that would otherwise have been lost.

Obviously the logic doesn't hold. Arbitrary is arbitrary, and logic has nothing to do with it.

Everybody knows it; it's in the damn party platform and has been for decades.

They're buying now what may not be available in the future: tactical rifles like the AR-15.


Or are you saying there isn't going to be an attempt to ban guns like the AR-15 in the next 4 years?

I was close to the sporting area so went to take a look.

The wall which normally has 150+ rifles and shotguns had 6. The counters which hold over 100 pistols had one, and someone was buying it.

Total boxes of handgun ammo- 0. Total of rifle ammo- 5, the only calibers being 17 HMR and 300 WSM. Pre-covid there would have been about a thousand boxes for pistols and near triple for rifles.

There were a few dozen boxes of shotgun shells but it was less than 5% of the normal inventory.

but you and Krispos are dead on. This happens every time our party comes out with some silly gun law. Was at a surplus store/gun shop in Pekin, IL before passage of the AWB. The "assault gun" rack was full, 2-3 guns in every slot. Rack was probably 10-12' long. Went there again, between passage, and Pres. Clinton signing it (was several weeks between, IIRC). Empty slots in rack. I watched for about 15 minutes, 3 guns were sold off that rack alone. NRA best gun salesmen? Look to our party leaders, trying to do the same thing, expecting different results.