* Crossposted in POLITICS

Hello, everyone.

From:
http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/article.aspx?subjectid=11&articleid=20090313_11_A1_ARuger442781

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Sales of guns, ammo still high

by: KELLY BOSTIAN World Outdoors Writer
Friday, March 13, 2009
3/13/2009 12:59:14 PM

Correction: This story originally reported the wrong years when comparing
the number of permit applications. The cutline incorrectly identified the
.40 and .45 caliber bullets. The story and cutline have been corrected.

Four months after the election of President Barack Obama, firearms and
ammunition sales in Tulsa remain at a fever pitch.

Popular self-protection ammunition is often sold out at local stores,
weapons are flying off shelves and the state reports an 87 percent increase
in concealed carry permit applications for February 2009 over February
2008.

"People are hoarding. They're creating a shortage," Jim Prall at
Sports World on 41st Street said of ammunition sales. "We've sold more
ammunition in the last three months than we sold last year."

Gun sales spiked in November with the election of Barack Obama and
Democrats adding to their majority in Congress. But local gun dealers say
the spike is turning into a steady climb with political worries about gun
rights as well as worries about the economy and potential for increased
crime.

Prall said his store planned ahead for the increase, having seen a similar
spike after Bill Clinton was elected, but the previous jump in sales pales
in comparison to what's happening now.

"Most we're selling now we got back in September, but we bought
pallets then where normally we wouldn't have ordered that much."

The surprise sales come with .380 caliber semi- automatic pistols. A
relatively small self-protection weapon, it's not one that people typically
fire in great quantity at the firing range, Prall said. Yet, the ammunition
is now hard to find. "Nobody would have predicted that," he said.

"What's happened is everybody is afraid because the Democrats are
anti-gun," said David Stone, president of Dong's Guns and Ammo on East
Admiral Place.

Internet chatter about bills in Congress that would create additional taxes
on firearms and ammunition components, require strict licensing and ban
more types of so-called "assault weapons" add to the concern,
Stone said. "That's just driving everyone into panic mode," he
said. "We're selling 10 times the ammo we used to."

Similar bills have come up in Congress before, but few have advanced.

"We ran completely out here of 9 mm and .380," said Johny
Mathews, product and service manager at the U.S. Shooting Sports Academy on
East 66th Street North. "We were begging, borrowing and stealing from
wherever."

Concealed-carry classes at the academy are booked through April. "We
used to do 15-person classes, and now we do 24 because of the demand,"
he said.

Mathews believes that politics are partly to blame, but the economy also
has people worried.

"It's 50/50, I think" he said. "When people lose jobs and
get desperate, good people can sometimes do bad things. People hear more
about home invasions, robberies, and they think it will only get worse.
Then they're afraid they might lose their guns or ammo, so they stock
up."

Sales are so intense that Stone has limited sales of .380 ammo to one box
per customer at Dong's. He has .380-caliber handguns for sale, and likes to
be able to sell ammunition to whoever buys a gun, he said.

A shipment of 10 Ruger .380 LCP handguns was sold in 24 hours this week -
seven the first day, three the next. "Last week I had 28 boxes of
.380, rationed to one per person, and it was gone in three days,"
Stone said.

Academy Sporting Goods stores also are low on .380 ammo. "The other
day we got 16 boxes of .380 and a guy came in first thing and bought all
16," said Jon Ide, hunting and fishing sales associate at the 41st
Street store. "A few people are doing all the buying, and it's the
people who are trying to just get a box or two that can't find any."

The increased sales comes with an increase in Oklahomans seeking
concealed-carry permits.

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation pulled in additional help last
month so it could process concealed-carry permit applications within the
required 90 days, according to the supervisor of the self-defense licensing
unit. Unit workers do not release their names.

The 87.2 percent increase for February 2009 over the same month last year
was partially due to renewal applications for permits issued three and five
years ago. But new applications have steadily risen in the past three
years, and increased markedly since November, she said.

She couldn't share the monthly breakdown on numbers, but as an indication
of the volume said the state issued a total of 18,510 permits in 2008. The
bureau's annual reports show the state issued 16,426 permits in 2007 and
9,529 in 2006. There are 75,525 valid active concealed-carry permits in
Oklahoma, she said.
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Later,
Sean

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