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Bullet Makers Can't Keep up With Demand
Gun enthusiasts claim Obama's election is fueling demand for guns, ammo
NEW ORLEANS - Bullet-makers are working around the clock, seven days a week, and still can't keep up with the nation's demand for ammunition.
In a Saturday, Aug. 22, 2009 photo, Various sized caliber handgun ammunition at the Shooters' Club in Harahan, La., a suburb of New Orleans. Bullets, especially for handguns, have been scarce for months because gun enthusiasts are stocking up on ammunition. (AP Photo/Judi Bottoni) Shooting ranges, gun dealers and bullet manufacturers say they have never seen such shortages. Bullets, especially for handguns, have been scarce for months because gun enthusiasts are stocking up on ammo, in part because they fear President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress will pass antigun legislation - even though nothing specific has been proposed and the president last month signed a law allowing people to carry loaded guns in national parks.
Gun sales spiked when it became clear Obama would be elected a year ago and purchases continued to rise in his first few months of office. The FBI's National Instant Criminal Background Check System reported that 6.1 million background checks for gun sales were issued from January to May, an increase of 25.6 percent from the same period the year before.
"That is going to cause an upswing in ammunition sales," said Larry Keane, senior vice president of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a trade association representing about 5,000 members. "Without bullets a gun is just a paper weight."
The shortage for sportsmen is different than the scarcity of ammo for some police forces earlier this year, a dearth fueled by an increase in ammo use by the military in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"We are working overtime and still can't keep up with the demand," said Al Russo, spokesman for North Carolina-based Remington Arms Company, which makes bullets for rifles, handguns and shotguns. "We've had to add a fourth shift and go 24-7. It's a phenomenon that I have not seen before in my 30 years in the business."
Americans usually buy about 7 billion rounds of ammunition a year, according to the National Rifle Association. In the past year, that figure has jumped to about 9 billion rounds, said NRA spokeswoman Vickie Cieplak.
Jason Gregory, who manages Gretna Gun Works just outside of New Orleans, has been building his personal supply of ammunition for months. His goal is to have at least 1,000 rounds for each of his 25 weapons.
"I call it the Obama effect," said Gregory, 37, of Terrytown, La. "It always happens when the Democrats get in office. It happened with Clinton and Obama is even stronger for gun control. Ammunition will be the first step, so I'm stocking up while I can."
So far, the new administration nor Congress has not been markedly antigun. Obama has said he respects Second Amendment rights, but favors "common sense" on gun laws. Still, worries about what could happen persist.
Demand has been so heavy at some Walmarts, a limit was imposed on the amount of ammo customers can buy. The cutoff varies according to caliber and store location, but sometimes as little as one box - or 50 bullets - is allowed.
At Barnwood Arms in Ripon, Calif., sales manager Dallas Jett said some of the shortages have leveled off, but 45-caliber rounds are still hard to find.
"We've been in business for 32 years and I've been here for 10 and we've never seen anything like it," Jett said. "Coming out of Christmas everything started to dry up and it was that way all through the spring and summer.
Nationwide, distributors are scrambling to fill orders from retailers.
"We used to be able to order 50 or 60 cases and get them in three or four days easy, it was never an issue," said Vic Grechniw of Florida Ammo Traders, a distributor in Tampa, Fla. "Now you are really lucky if you can get one case a month. It just isn't there because the demand is way up."
A case contains 500 or 1,000 bullets.
At Jefferson Gun Outlet and Range in Metairie just west of New Orleans, owner Mike Mayer is worried individuals are going to start buying by the case.
"If someone wants to shoot on the weekend you have to worry about having the ammunition for them. And I know some people aren't buying to use it at the range, they're taking it home and hoarding it."
With demand, prices have also risen.
"Used to be gold, but now lead is the most expensive metal," said Donald Richards, 37, who was stocking up at the Jefferson store. "And worth every penny."
58 Comments so far
Show AllLooking at the picture of the bullet shapes and styles, akin to items for sale in a Xandria Sex Toy catalog, I can't tell whether Freud is smiling from his grave and yelling, Eureka!, or whether I should reread Dr. Helen Caldicott's wonderful book MISSILE ENVY, light some candles and drape a gray veil over my head and face. ... Or maybe they look more like Lipsticks to put on a pig. [Thank you, Sarah Palin.]
Gee, 9 BILLION rounds of ammunition on the loose. Only 300-320 million people in this country? and certainly not that number of deer, squirrel, possums, gophers, raccoons ...
But, as the Boy Scouts motto admonishes: ALWAYS BE PREPARED!
Is this what's called THE HUMAN COMEDY?
/cm
Hey, let them waste their money on their idiotic fears.
But, can we be certain that they won't act on their idiotic fears?
The "anarchists" I will be joining in a couple hours, provoking so much media generated fear and angst won't have a single gun or bullet among them. But, the thousands of police (probably more than the turnout today) certainly do!
If they do, the hammer will drop on the whole lot of them, and very quickly. Representing the status quo that these morons want or not, the federal government won't tolerate violence against itself.
Hear about the census worker killed yet?
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jbzG_BlkG2Hfc818EPRRn1bBlP6gD9AT92400
Strange you should mention the Boy Scouts. I was in a doctor's office recently, where there was a stack of Boy's Life magazine (the official Boy Scout magazine).
Sure enough, lots of ads for guns in them.
But only in the US scouting movement. Baden-Powell's vision of scouting in the Commonwealth did not include guns.
I believe you may want to re-think this. Baden Powell fasioned the scouts after a para-military movement. Entering water, swimming, exiting water without making any sound was one requirement of early scouting, along with survival tactics. Archery and Marksmanship have been traditional merit badges for many years.
Yep, ole baden was quite the warlover in his day. Thought that scouts would be the basis of the best soldier that could be trained, by starting when the kid was very young. Those first batches of scouts went on to fill the graves in Flanders Fields...
You are mostly correct. Baden-Powell envisioned the scouting movement as a home-guard should Old Blighty be invaded and occupied. The emphasis was not on providing an effective resistance force, but one that could survive and maintain order amidst a panicked populace when England had lost most of its young men to the invasionary army.
I stand by my comment. Guns were never a part of BP's vision.
Maybe you should stop reading so many dildo ads and pornographic magazines - take your mind out of the gutter for a minute - and read the Constitution - the Second Amendment clearly states the RIGHT to Keep & BEAR Arms! And a RIGHT Not Exercised is a Right to be Lost!
So true, eaK so true!!!!!!! The one I personally exercise is the first article of the of the 21st Amendment which repealed the 18th amendment.. Sure don't want to loose that one!!! ;-})
Too funny...
but nowhere does the constitution guarantee the right to access ammo.
Maybe you should stop reading so many dildo ads and pornographic magazines - take your mind out of the gutter for a minute - and read the Constitution - the Second Amendment clearly states the RIGHT to Keep & BEAR Arms! And a RIGHT Not Exercised is a Right to be Lost!
And the Fourth Amendment clearly states:
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated."
The Patriot Act, under George Bush destroyed that right. But the bigger question is: Does the Patriot Act, constitutional or not, give the government/military the right to search your home without a warrant and confiscate your "arms"?
If you belive in the Second Amendment, you had better be concerned about the Fourth Amendment as well!
I really think it is the Bush/Cheney made gestapo forces using the bullets as they shoot unarm people in the back. We have had four sauch shootings by the policia in the past three weeks. Bravo to the cops. When a man is scared he will do things like that. They should draft the todays cops into the military since they are so trigger happy.
I live near Philadelphia. Philly loses more cops to gun shots than it should have murders total! Straw purchases, low documentation gun shows...and you can get gunned down for your pocket change, or after you hit the ATM in some parts of town. Its really a shame.
Ammunition, along with canned food and water-purification tablets, might become currency when---not if--- the dollar collapses.
One doesn't even need to own a gun to understand how this might play out.
Won't matter for me because without my thyroid meds, I'll be toast before long anyway. Might be able to stock up for two years at best. On the other hand, I might be able to gain refugee status in Canada.
Not with Bushoid mini-me scum running that country. Or the sorry neocon waiting in the wings in the so-called "Liberal" Party . . .
chessgames56 September 24th, 2009 11:54 am
"Won't matter for me because without my thyroid meds, I'll be toast before long anyway."
I heard there is currently a shortage problem with thyroid meds. If you're having trouble getting them, call some "compounding" pharmacies. They usually have the ingredients on hand and can custom-design a prescription for you. Most of them will mail them out if there are no compounding pharmacies in your neighborhood.
Thanks, Gail. I still have about a year's supply. I purchased the last batch from India via a South African company. Initially, I was afraid to take them, but an Indian doctor practicing here said it would be fine. They were packaged much better than the brand name Synthroid tablets sold here. Unfortunately, I need about twice the average dose (200 mcg) for normal metabolic maintenance. Hopefully, the shortage of thyroid meds is only temporary, and the price doesn't skyrocket. For now, the price is relatively cheap.
where has the US economy grown other than in financial speculation? how about a 50% increase in weapons exports, with a 70% global market share:
the number one weapons broker in the world
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/09/09/notes090909.DTL
U.S. Role as Top Arms Supplier Grows
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/world/07weapons.html?_r=1
Violence is also a trademark cultural export of the US. Hollywood glam savagery has insidiously permeated the planet. longtime MPAA head Jack Valenti, close friend of Charlton Heston, was notorious for squelching foreign cinema all over the world, using his close government ties, threatening economic sanctions to sustain America's cultural message of gun-toting righteousness. our inner-city schools are now the top recruiting centers for the Pentagon. 9mm rounds sell for 10cts. Violence: American as apple pie
Thanks to No Child Left Behind, our schools are still required to allow military recruiters on campus. No sign that Obama wants to change that...I reckon he needs more troops for the endless fucking war in Afghanistan-Pakistan.
Be afraid!
Urinate copiously!
Leave dodo with piss
Laugh at "home of the brave"
Enter cave with provisions
Teach others how great fear is
Sadness at a peoples obsessions. Tony
Maybe it's all those right wing-nuts who feel they've been betrayed. They're just waiting for Rush or Glen to give the signal.
So, Obama signs a bill that allows people to pack heat in National Parks and the gun nuts see that as a sign that he’s going to outlaw guns.
Here in Indiana hunting is not nearly as popular as it was 20 years ago. Opening day of deer gun season used to sound like a reenactment of a Civil War battle. The last few years you hear a few shots on opening day but not nearly as many as you did 20 years ago. I used to plan on cleaning the basement on opening day as it seemed like a good idea to be underground with 8” thick concrete walls around you.
Warsaw Indiana has just announced a special archery hunt designed to reduce the urban deer population. 70 hunters attended a training session held by the police department and 62 qualified for the special hunt. Each hunter will be allowed to take up to 12 deer in an effort to remove excess deer. I live near Warsaw and saw 2 deer within 3 blocks of the court house, downtown, the last time I was there.
30 years ago seeing a trophy deer was rare in most of Indiana as most bucks were harvested in their first or second year. Back then the largest deer in Indiana tended to be in parks where they were protected. These days seeing an 8 or 10 point bucks is no big deal and there are probably enough bucks that only big dominate bucks breed, which should improve the quality of the herd over time.
That gun and bullet sales are up at the same time that the sport of hunting is shrinking* tells me that most of these sales are motivated by paranoia. So, what else is new?
*Chronic wasting disease in deer is partly responsible for the decrease in deer hunting but I’m pretty sure that interest in all types of hunting is down here in Indiana as there are huge flocks of geese, rabbits ate most of my garden and I hear as many as five different packs of coyotes when they start to howl at night.
Some people have stockpiled ammo because of Obama, but the main driving force for the increased stockpiling is simply supply and demand. When the demand went up after election, opportunistic gun stores were buying up shelves of ammo from Walmart and turning around and marking it up at their stores. Walmart shelves were bare, and people confronted with bare shelves understandably panicked. They immediately began to buy as much as they could when it was available. This led to even more shortages, which led to even more demand and more hoarding.
As soon as ammo is consistently available for a month, the hoarding will stop and the demand will level off. If stores like Walmart had put in place a one box limit per day earlier in the ammo rush, much of the hysteria could have been avoided.
However, now this shortage has lasted for what is approaching an entire year and the psychological effects of that are profound. Considering that our second amendment rights are dependent upon ammo, it makes sense that people are opportunistic and buy whenever it's available.
I used to be able to buy bricks of 22 ammo whenever I wanted. Now, I almost never see it, so when I do, I buy them. Why?
Since ammo can easily be stored for decades, and the price of ammo will only go up in the future due to inflation, then it makes sense from a financial standpoint to hoard a lifetime of ammo, especially if it's not available at reasonable prices for weeks at a time. None of the people buying ammo see it as a waste of money. They see it as insurance. If this shortage blows over and the supply catches up with demand, people who hoarded will easily be able to sell new unopened boxes of ammo at a loss of only a couple dollars per box, or they can simply use it up over their lifetime.
If we face economic collapse and the dollar becomes worthless paper, the people who hoarded ammo will be sitting on a gold mine as they can use it for protection against raiding gangs of thieves, and also for trade and barter for food and medicine.
I personally do not believe for a second that Obama is out to shut down ammunition factories or take away our guns. I think a lot of the hysteria surrounding this has been played up by people inside the ammunition/gun industry in order to make a buck.
"the main driving force for the increased stockpiling is simply supply and demand. When the demand went up after election, opportunistic gun stores were buying up shelves of ammo from Walmart and turning around and marking it up at their stores. Walmart shelves were bare, and people confronted with bare shelves understandably panicked. They immediately began to buy as much as they could when it was available. This led to even more shortages, which led to even more demand and more hoarding."
I always knew supply and demand made so much sense.
Good cometary. Unfortunately, at this point of time, there is no other "hope" left but guns and ammo... The Left has become hopelessly worthless...
Don't forget about Silver & Gold and Storable Food!
Euarto, Exemplary comment.
Excellent comment.
Are you speculating or do you know that independent store owners were buying from Walmart and then reselling?
Even if that was rarely the case, once the hoarding started then Walmart, like everyone else, had trouble keeping up with demand.
It might be able to actually tease out the answer if certain information was available:
1) the quantity of manufactured (apparently 9 billion)
and
2) the quantity sold at retail
We can then quantify the amount of reselling is occurring.
Question: are there no laws regarding reselling of ammo? I might have thought that ammo once sold in retail might be ineligible to be sold again. It certainly would make law enforcement efforts to track manufactured lots to buyers harder.
Chris Rock has it right - make bullets cost $1000 each. In this case, make $998 of that taxes. Budget problems will be gone in no time.
I like it. Possible tax exemption for the first 100 for anyone who has a valid hunting license. (In this economy, hunting for food may become necessary as it was during the last Depression.)
Joe
American civilians buy a bullet for every person on the
planet every year. Every year, every year, every year.
Jingle Bells, Shotgun Shells, Santa's on his way?
...the effects of a tiny penis are otherwise difficult to rationalize.
Wow! It be like Fallujah. Cool!
Its a little late with all the bullets already out there, but I think bullet makers should be forced to give bullets lot numbers and identify each lot with a combination of trace elements at different trace percentages of the lead. Personal identification and bullet lot numbers will be posted to a computer system as bullets are purchased.
When the cops find a bullet, they could take it to a spectrometer and find out who purchased it within 30 minutes. Bullet DNA, baby!
not possible since any lead can be molded into bullets.
As a Canadian with a 30-30 and an antique 9mm Bereta in his possession(my uncle took it from an Italian officer in ww2), I have to shake my head at the gun craziness south of the border. The only use I can see for my guns is to fight off the hoards of American climate refugees invading Canada like animals escaping a forest fires.
It won't be the climate. After we've poisoned all our water, we'll be coming for some good Canadian water, eh?.... And maybe get some free heathcare while were there too.
Grappa
Just to get it out on the record. most right wing loonys think that only their side is locked and loaded, let them keep on thinking that! The left goes all the way back to the Pathers @ SDS. Underground was borned in the 60's.
Right wingers also cover them selves in the belief that ex military would naturally side with them. They couldn't be more wrong. the cities are their waterloo,as the term that was used to bring down our leader. I've been to V.N., and the ideal of releasing violence by the right, or even the ideal of intiminating our leaders and supporters of a progressive agenda won't wash. We will not back down and we will push with push back.
If gun sales are up 25.6% from last year, you can bet that gets the government's attention. They must be considering the possibility that some kind of revolt or widespread violence may break out, and could be preparing for it. From the looks of the Pittsburgh G20 event, they're well ready.
So?? Is the government buying up the bullets so the "other side" won't have anything to put in their new bought guns.
And few bullets for any one thinking of being "Anti-government" ?
Just a thought or food for thought.
I don't think the US gov't is buying up excess ammo production to create a shortage, but I wouldn't put anything past the thugs in power nowadays.
Could we not save needed ammunition if these weapons were fitted to fire backwards? But w/ the sights straight to keep it feeling normal. What about free ammo if these guys will play Russian Roulette at the Roadhouse, Just tack plastice sheets against the walls.d Free rinks for women, no cover for couples and promise genuine Country only on the juke. $$$$ house be packed mon. side bets would hit 5 figures for kin.
Guns don't kill people! Bullets kill people!
Funny, the 2d Amendment in my copy of the Constitution says something about a "well-regulated militia". Did GeeDub trash that part too?
everyone was so smart creative and funny on this one.
ever think about a career in govt.? they need some
smart and creative folks just about now as the current
idea's just won't work anymore. just think about you
will have health care too! on to the post maybe these
lunatics will start killing each other and it will
accomplish 2 things clean up the gene pool and create
new careers in the funeral business. casket companies
might be a good investment too. lets try to make them
bio degradable though and no one will ever know.
The left hate guns, but they don't miss a chance to shoot themselves repeatedly in both feet when it comes the second amendment. Tools.