The lamestream media told you:
Gun and ammunition sales are up as irrational fears of impending
gun restrictions under president Obama drive frightened consumers to buy
firearms and stock up on ammunition. Although gun ownership is known to be
dangerous, this hasn't stop some fringe elements of the public from
hoarding and creating personal arsenals, while the gun industry secretly
smiles and enjoys record profits.
The Uninvited Ombudsman notes however that:
Charly Gullet, long-time friend and owner of The American Gunshop
in Prescott, Arizona, has his own view of what's really going on:
"If I may, I'd like to offer you my very limited perspective on
the "gun-sale boom" for which I have only my own experience and personal
analysis.
"Virtually all the lamestream media has dutifully reported the
so-called boom, boorishly reciting the ubiquitous November uptick in NICS
background checks. The inescapable impression one gets from the nearly
non-stop repetition of news video showing "gun owners" standing in line to
buy out both guns and ammo is that gun shops and their owners just got
stinking rich and are probably sitting somewhere with their feet up sipping
champagne while the rest of the Roman economy burns.
"This turns out not to be the case.
"1. In fact, the retail gun business has been off for almost a
year and half due to the same economic collapse that the rest of the nation
is suffering under and may be about to get dramatically worse for firearms
retailers, industry and buyers.
"2. The November and after gun boom in sales (identified by NICS
checks) in my experience has been composed of primarily two types of
buyers; first-time buyers and scalpers. SMALL gun shops had almost no
uptick in November and December (traditionally a holiday uptick
period). January was flat (which is typical for the post Xmas VISA
depression) and February was up a little bit, but still down
compared to two or three or four years ago February results.
"One might be tempted to ask how, given the news coverage, this
could possibly be the case? Here is what is not getting above the
radar...
"First-time gun buyers are not sophisticated gun owners. They are
not even shooters and they certainly are not Second Amendment
supporters.
"They are people who have been convinced either by their friends
or the media that they are about to become the only person in the
neighborhood who does not have an AK47. This kind of buyer does not know
where small, privately owned gun shops exist. In their very limited view,
big-box stores like Cabella's, or regional commodity shops like J&G Sales
here in Prescott are the destinations for both first-time buyers (and the
news media) because they don't know anything else. I guarantee you CNN was
not in my little shop asking about the champagne.
"Scalpers also do not buy in the small gun shops. Scalpers are
looking to buy cases of rifles/pistols/shotguns and truckfuls of
ammunition, neither of which is available in the limited inventories of
small customer-oriented gun shops.
"It gets worse...
"The net result of the boom was to completely sell out the
distribution channel through the big-box stores and create
enormous back-orders in the factories. This is disastrous for
small business for several reasons. First, small businesses operate on
limited inventory and small margins so they must be able to restock
turnover. Every new gun (and ammo) sale we have had since November has
become a hole on the wall because we can't replace it.
"Worse yet, factory production is both limited and on a staggered
schedule. Any given machine builds several products and the machine is
re-tooled several times during the year. This means when there is a
distribution channel sellout, it takes months for the factories to get any
kind of inventory back into the distribution pipe, and in some cases we
will not see products in retail again until the end of this year.
"So, on the off chance that a small gun shop has a repeat
customer show up with money we are becoming increasingly hard pressed to
have anything they want. Most small businesses do not have the financially
deep pockets to wait out a recession with no available restocking inventory
in distribution.
"Coupled with an already long-term bad economy, this will
cause, I believe, a large number of small gun shops to go out of business
this year, contrary to the champagne image we are getting in the
media. I suspect the media will neither morn nor report the number of
Mom-and-Pop gun shops that go out of business.
"The final pain here is the hit to the industry. I know for a
fact that Bushmaster is back-ordered by over one million units (as
you know, they only build AR15s). Other factories are in similar
situations. Because of the enormity of the back-order, Bushmaster
hascancelled all innovative product development (including the
much trumpetedMasada ACR) in order to put the entire labor force
onto back-order production. We will now have no new products this year
and maybe none next year. Stagnation in innovation is poison in any
market.
"And we did all this for what reason? If anybody is drinking
champagne, its Obama, who is showing more teeth than a long-eared mule with
a bucket of Prozac.
"Looking forward to seeing you third weekend in April, when you
come to town with your band, The Cartridge Family.
"Warm regards, Charly"
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