Paul Barrett, employee of gun-hating Michael Bloomberg, apparently thinks that Americans tell anonymous pollsters every little detail of their lives, including the content of their gun safes.

Savvy industry observers, when speaking privately and therefore candidly, tell me that torrid sales during Obama’s first term portend an inevitable leveling off during his second four years. After all, with only a minority of American households reporting to pollsters that they have one or more firearms, how many weapons are the Second Amendment enthusiasts willing to buy? The venerable concept of supply and demand suggests that at some point the consumer market will hit a point of satiation.

Barrett is largely right in his general view that firearms purchases are beginning to level off after several record years.

Dealer inventories of the more popular modern sporting rifles and semi-automatic handguns are building back up, as are common standard capacity magazines of 15-30 rounds. Ammunition for the most common caliber handguns (9mm, .40 S&W, .45 ACP) and the most common centerfire rifle cartridges (.223 Remington/5.56 NATO, 7.62×39 Russian, .308 Winchester/7.62 NATO, etc) are once again beginning to flow in quantity, though many other cartridges are in very short supply.

Rimfire ammunition, unfortunately, is still exceedingly rare, especially .22LR.

All that allowed, Barrett’s reliance on pollsters to get accurate firearms ownership data is a howler.

I’ve never met a gun owner who has ever been honest with a complete stranger about the number of firearms that they own, and many flatly refuse to even discuss with strangers whether they even have firearms. Barrett honestly thinks that after decades of anti-gun media bias and politically-shaped polls, that gun owners are going to be honest about what they own with some guy on the phone?

If he does, I’ve got some wonderful oceanfront property in Scottsdale that I think he’s enjoy, where the beach goes on forever.