Increased Gun Sales And How Firearms Are Equalizers

Between Cam and I, we’ve probably slaughtered an unknowable number of electrons writing about how gun sales have skyrocketed this year. It seems like every month, one of us is obligated to write about how we’ve just set yet another record on firearm sales. It happens so much, people are getting bored with it.

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However, a recent story on the trend had a bit that made me smile. It also brings up a broader point about firearm ownership.

“People are hoarding ammo like they were hoarding toilet paper,” said Steve West, who works at Palmer Firearms in Beavercreek. “It’s pretty weird. It’s something I haven’t seen before.”

Palmer Firearms has seen their sales triple from last year, West said. Sales picked up when the pandemic started and picked up even more after civil unrest started around the death of George Floyd on Memorial Day weekend.

“I had an old lady that wanted me to strap a holster to her walker,” West said.

Firearm purchases have climbed every month since March. Nationally more than 1.7 million background checks were conducted in October alone, a roughly 60% jump over the same period in 2019, according to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS).

In Ohio, there were 85,170 background checks done in October. Last October in Ohio there were about 50,000 background checks. The total number of background checks conducted from 2019 to now has increased by 25%, according to the data from the FBI.

Now, the information about gun sales is interesting, but far more interesting is the quote I bolded above. I honestly couldn’t help but smile when I read that one.

I don’t think Grandma is interested in being easy prey.

And that’s kind of the thing about these increased gun sales that make me most happy. See, these background checks represent good, law-abiding people buying guns. There’s no way to track black-market sales, but white-market? We have the NICS checks as a proxy. We can see that a lot of guns are sold.

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Many of those are going to those little old ladies, and that’s a win.

Does anyone really think that an old lady with a walker is going to take up martial arts and learn how to defeat a home invader like she’s Bruce Lee? Of course not. It’s simply not going to happen. It can’t happen. It’s not physically possible.

But you know what is possible? She can muster the few pounds of pressure necessary to pull a trigger if needed. Hell, she may not even need to. After all, if a bad guy sees a gun, more times than not, they haul tail. Yet if they don’t, she’s still able to resist.

The Second Amendment gives these little old ladies and anyone else who needs it a way to resist the tyranny of the thug. They can fight back, protecting themselves from all manner of depravity at the hands of the vile scum of the Earth. All they need is a firearm.

That’s what’s currently in jeopardy right now, and it’s why our fight is more important than ever.

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