Many Americans agree and are stocking up on weapons after the country's worst mass shooting in three years. Gun retailers are reporting surging sales, with customers saying they want to keep handguns and rifles at hand for self-defense in the event of another attack.
"Everyone is reporting up, every store, every salesman, every distributor," said Ray Peters, manager of Range, Guns & Safes, a company that sells firearms and safes in Atlanta with an indoor firing range. "People are more aware of the need to protect themselves."
[...] Gun sales were already on the rise this year. On Black Friday, the popular shopping day on Nov. 27 after the U.S. Thanksgiving Day holiday, a total of 185,345 applicants were processed through the FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System, a 5.5 percent increase from the year before.
The Pew Research Center found last December that 57 percent of Americans say they believe owning a gun helps protect people from crime, up from 48 percent in 2012. The rest said owning a gun would put personal safety at risk.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 12 2015, @10:38PM
I might agree with you except that gun and ammo sales always seem to spike immediately after some sort of mass shooting or terrorist incident. That suggests to me that this is largely driven by hysteria over terrorism.
And this assertion is in direct contradiction to the facts. Despite calls by the President on down for more gun control there is really no meaningful legislation on the horizon. And, if I recall correctly, the last time lawmakers in Colorado even tried for modest reform, they were thanked for their efforts by recall elections which removed them from office.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday December 13 2015, @12:27AM
" That suggests to me that this is largely driven by hysteria over terrorism. "
It happens after every mass-shooting, like Sandy Hook, which wasn't considered "terrorism." There may be a small percentage of people who buy out of terrorism or social unrest fears but the real reason most people buy is because everytime there's a mass-shooting the likelihood of increasing the difficulty of buying weapons and ammo increases, legislated or not, one reason of which is because there's a lot of panic-buying with ammo which of course drives up its cost.