If you’re a regular reader of Bearing Arms or remotely interested in the Second Amendment, you’re well aware of the fact that gun sales have been soaring for nearly a year now. If, however, you get your news from the Washington Post you may have only recently learned about the surge in demand for firearms.
The paper has now taken note of the Great Gun Run of 2020/2021, and perhaps most surprisingly, their story on the record-high number of gun sales in January doesn’t quote a single gun control activist. Instead of talking to Shannon Watts or Kris Brown of Brady, the Post instead spoke to Second Amendment supporters to try to figure out what’s going on.
Steven Dulan, who teaches firearms law at Western Michigan University’s Thomas M. Cooley Law School and is on the board of the Michigan Coalition for Responsible Gun Owners, said he has heard of new gun owners buying firearms as an investment, like a precious metal.
Far more common, he said, are the reports from first-time buyers who say they no longer trust police departments to protect them, especially after some agencies were overwhelmed by protesters during the summer.
“The folks that said they would never become a gun owner were trusting the police to protect them, and that delusion has been dispelled,” he said…
I’ll give the Post credit for relying on voices like Duland and Mark Oliva of the National Shooting Sports Foundation to explain the surge in gun sales rather than turning to anti-gun “experts.” In fact, this is actually one of the better Second Amendment-related stories that I’ve seen from Washington Post. There’s not a lot of anti-gun bias on display, and rather than using the rising gun sales as an excuse to craft an anti-gun narrative, the reporters on the story actually let gun owners tell their story.
A 27-year-old Florida resident told The Post on Wednesday that he recently went to Academy, a sporting-goods retailer, in search of 9-millimeter ammunition. The sales clerk just laughed, telling him he was out of bullets and had only six guns in his inventory.
“With the lockdown and a president who is saying things like ‘gun reform,’ there’s a fear within the gun community and people that are responsible gun owners that they’re going to be made into felons just by nature of law,” said Sam, who asked that his last name be withheld, because he did not want his employer to know his gun views.
It’s easy to rip the the media for their anti-gun attitudes, but when a paper like the Washington Post actually approaches the issue with some semblance of fairness we should also take note. The Post may just now be discovering the fact that millions of Americans have embraced their right to keep and bear arms for the first time in their lives over the past year, but at least this report is based on facts and not the agenda of gun-grabbers like Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action.
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