…and more Americans started packing heat:
Last fall, I wrote about a surprising trend: gun sales have skyrocketed since Barack Obama became president. During that time, the stock of gunmaker Sturm Ruger (RGR) has outperformed gold. Analysts aren’t quite sure what’s causing the trend…
Probably just an outbreak of clingy bitterness.
Read Joshua Green’s “Barack Obama, ‘Greatest Gun Salesman in America'” here.
With stupid comments like that how did this idiot become POTUS?
Common sense tell people that the light at the end of the tunnel……..is another train.
I have been studying Astronomy for over 30 years and it amazing me how stupid the Artsy fartsy types are in Toronto.
There is one radio host that WILL NOT accept that the SUN aids in the Earth temps, plus they WILL NOT listen to resson that for the ocean to rise even 2 feet means that the 25% of the Earth that is land would have to have enough water in a Solid form to melt and supply the 75% of water already with 24 inches of the 75% surface so it rises that much.
NASA has charts to prove the Solar flares and solar Winds go in cycles with a 7-8 year lag for temps going up and then down. Evidence today proves there were Ice-ages, and even in the North there is a layer of tropical growth frozen way down in the ground to prove the Arctic had high temps at one point.
Imagine a bath tub half full, then beside it is a table that is only 25% of the surface area of the tub. How high would the ice have to be stacked to melt and raise the water level just 2 inches ???
And, where the hell would the people live if just 25% of the earths surface is land?
The Ice that is frozen and at sea level anyway will just melt and stay there, just like ice-cubes in a tray that DON’T cause floods when they melt.
Also, Mars got hotter from Solar flares and no clould to mitgate the heat rays , but the Al Gore’s of the world don’t take about it because mars has no SUV’s to blame for the heat increasing by the SUN and not the evil humans that should die in masses to save the Planet.
BTW
The marianna-trench in the Ocean goes down over
30’000 feet , was all that water all ICE at one point and then melted ???
NO, it was there when the earth formed and even today we CAN NOT make any NEW water, we can only extract it from the Air or melt ice to joint the current supply.
Actors and radio hosts should stcik to being talking heads reading the scripts and following the CRTC rules .
Although Obama’s racist policies have set race relations back 50 years, the mainstream purchase of weapons started in earnest after Katrina.
Inner city looting and killings now start about 7 minutes after the lights go out.
So, in the U.S.A. gun ownership, gun and ammo sales have gone up over the last 15 years, and there has been an increase in hunting license sales in a number of states. Oh, and crime is down to the lowest in 40 years.
In Canada, with 20 years of very restrictive gun laws, legal gun ownership is down by 66%, gun and ammo sales are down dramatically. Hunting license sales are down. Vehicle collisions with deer/Elk/moose are way up, including those causing human injury and death. Wild animal predation on humans is up dramatically. Crime statistics are down to the level of 1973(but not everywhere and many people no longer report crime having lost confidence in the legal system, and gun/gang related crime is up dramatically in urban areas). Prosecuting criminals is more difficult as many people don’t want to be witnesses against violent criminals. Unarmed they enter a prey/predator relationship that way.
@ Larry
“legal gun ownership is down by 66%, gun and ammo sales are down dramatically”.
Could it be that the millions of long guns that were never registered and the tons of ammo purchased before registration became law has any affect on the statistics. If my community is any indication , I would say yes.
Kind of like statistics on tobacco sales. Almost everyone I know now gets their smokes from their friendly natives at half price, but statistics show a decrease in smoking. Same BS.
Yeah Katrina had an influence but Obama’s off TOTUS remark about folks in Pennsylvania “clinging to their guns and bibles” was an obvious freudian slip, accurately interpreted by even those who knew nothing of Freud……If I recall the remark was uttered prior to his inauguaration if not the election.
I hope for a “velvet revolution” an election to resolve the matter but one of the givens is that nation states who acquire weapon systems or standing armies, eventually use them…..the same is probably true of a nations citizens…..
Perception becomes reality…consider the result of a perception that a reelected Maobama was the result of electoral fraud……with an estimated 2,000,000 dead people registered to vote in 2008…the perception that electoral fraud elected Maobama in 2008 has much merit.
The rumblings of FEMA CAMPS may have the credibility of chem trails…..but…..the thought is there….
It’s curious why the referenced article had nothing to say about the massive increase in firearms homicides which the medical “experts” have assured us would take place if the number of guns in the population rose. Seems that the only relationship between firearms and increased homicides was operation fast and furious which demonstrated that if you arm a group of crazy drug dealers, they’re going to go out and shoot people. Of course the gun store owners who would have refused to make the gun sales which the BATF forced them to make could have told you the inevitable outcome.
Right now the US should have a homicide rate 100X or more that of “disarmed” Jamaica or places like Mexico where possession of a single round of ammunition can result in jail time. It must be true if the NEJM and CMAJ say so. Curious that only people getting shot are violent criminals stupid enough to break into armed citizens homes.
Having an armed population must be very disconcerting for statists especially given the US military’s stated refusal to disarm the population if ordered to do so. The epidemiologists who go on endlessly about the strong relationship between gun ownership and homicides may see their beloved hypothesis confirmed if Obozo gets re-elected and attempts to tinker with the 2nd Amendment. Only, and they have no place for this in their mathematical models, these would be totally justified homicides should US patriots defend their freedoms. There should be a redneck equivalent of the doomsday clock indicating how close one is to the time when one should shoot the statist bastards.
Maybe they are concerned about the chosen one staying on past the normal two terms of a President…
And many of us realize just who we will need to use those guns against…
Dystopian Optimist >
“…the mainstream purchase of weapons started in earnest after Katrina.”
I agree with that. It was most definitely an inconvenient truth wakeup call for the US. In my opinion there were three waves of gun sale uptake, 9/11 – Katrina – Obamba.
I don’t think people have an appreciation of the amount of guns, ammo, food & gold hoarding that is going on these days. I’d hazard to say near that it’s near biblical proportions.
I’d far rather “have it and not need it” than “need it and not have it”…
Larry >
“In Canada,…….., legal gun ownership is down by 66%, gun and ammo sales are down dramatically”
I beg to differ. I’m not sure where you got the statistics, as another poster pointed out the Long Gun registry itself is a wasteful scrap of useless information.
Talking with gun store owners and sales persons in far too many Canadian gun stores for me to mention without some embarrassment, gun and ammo sales have been though the roof since Obamba’s election.
My local shooting club has more than doubled its membership during the same period.
Standard hunting round ammunition has always been available except the price has risen by an estimated 20% or so in the last 3 years. Good personal defense pistol ammo and what could be considered by some as ‘tactical” rifle ammo have been the main shortages everywhere.
There was a restocking of store shelves with yearlong back orders in late 2010 early 2011, but again we are seeing the same start to dry up again now. Even reloading equipment and ammo components went through a similar surge.
I don’t know about Katrina but around here (Miami, FL) gun sales began to rise the day after the ’08 election. It was fear of unfettered “progressive” politics destroying the economy and, combined with soft on crime policies, unleashing thugs. The process was simple: take a permit class, get a certificate, apply for a permit, head to the gun store. For a while, a year or more, classes were jammed and gun stores regularly ran out of handguns and ammo.
And not the least, sales would have to increase to offset the load of hardware Obama shipped to Mexico in F & F…
“Standard hunting round ammunition has always been available except the price has risen by an estimated 20% or so in the last 3 years. Good personal defense pistol ammo and what could be considered by some as ‘tactical” rifle ammo have been the main shortages everywhere.
There was a restocking of store shelves with yearlong back orders in late 2010 early 2011, but again we are seeing the same start to dry up again now. Even reloading equipment and ammo components went through a similar surge. ”
A lot of this is due to the significant increases in copper prices (component of brass) and reduction in lead smelters. Civilian availability of ammunition has been hampered by the military demand in the last 10 years.
Mike McCormick >
We’ve been well stocked with base priced handguns all the way though. The increased interest has brought some nicer and more exotic handguns, “assault” and “sniper” styled rifles into store display cases recently that were otherwise left to special order.
Lots of new goodie’s for enthusiast to actually handle before purchase instead of ordering online or through a magazine based on gun rag reviews.
The biggest issue here again is good (premium) handgun ammunition at a reasonable price. If you shoot lots, the only way to not break the bank even using crap ammo is by hand loading.
To give you an idea, I went to 4 different gun stores yesterday looking for some premium .357mag ammo that I like to use for the nickel cases that I reload afterwards. None of the stores but two had any .357mag available much less what I was looking for. One store had some crappy S&B for $36.00 a box of 50 and the other some cheap quality Winchester white box for $46.00 a box of 50.
If we ever lose the right to have guns, then we will become like Mexico. Bad guys with guns, citizens without guns, no means to protect themselves.
If the local Mexican populace had guns, then the drug cartels would think twice about riding into a town, city and taking it over. Let’s arm the Mexican population.
Interesting timnes, it is my friend.
Leaving aside the exceptionally unsubtle anti gun bias on parade here, I can offer a couple more factors that may explain gun sales better than “whipped up frenzy of paranoia.”
First of all, the USA is at war right now in two countries and looks to be adding Iran and Syria to the collection. Newspaper weenies don’t like to mention that but its a major factor.
Second, the last Democrat president had 80 women and children burnt to death in an ATF raid. With illegal participation by US army armored vehicles. The press likes to pretend that never happened but everyone else still remembers.
Third, this president’s men have been caught stone cold with the whole “Gunwalker” thing, which again the press doesn’t like to talk about.
Finally you can’t find a press story about guns that doesn’t scream BAN THEM!!!!!! And you can’t find a story about Obama that doesn’t worship him like the second coming.
Taken all together you’d have to be an idiot not to load up on guns and ammo.
Guns and Religion are the least of his problems–
President Obama, confronted by the political perils of surging gas prices in an election year, on Thursday defended his efforts to wean the United States off imported oil, (Green Energy)
even as he conceded there was little he could do in the short run to ease the pain at the pump.
Republican critics blame him for not approving the Canadian Keystone XL pipeline.
“The president would like everyone to forget that gas prices have doubled over the past three years while he consistently blocked and slowed the production of North American-made energy,”
–
Getting rid of Obama because of a Canadian Pipeline deal is such sweet justice..
I hope gas goes to six dollars a gallon while driving his ass out the door.
I am willing to deal with the pain,
if we can crush these bastards.
Fearless Leader, gas is $6 a gallon in parts of Florida right now. It was a Drudge headline yesterday.
Since his election Obama has stabbed US allies in the back, especially Israel. He’s declaired war on junk food, a class war, a war against the working class, pandered to every radical Islamic group he can grovel to and lately he’s declaired war on industry and businesses. Smart people can see he’s trying to cause massive unrest and upheaval in the US.
The Phantom >
Good summary.
I would also add that the economic meltdown putting millions out of work and on the street has increased anxieties of crime.
Open borders and continued talk of amnesty etcetera raises legitimate crime and economy concerns.
The recent waves of senseless flash mobs and attacks on elderly making daily headlines lately play a roll.
Obamba has been useless at all levels to squelch the funeral pyre of social unrest that has been building in the US under his administration. So much so that it could easily be interpreted as intentional.
gas is $6 a gallon in parts of Florida right now.
Posted by: The Phantom
Now we need to get these Republican/Independent 2012 candidates off their thumbs, to start bitching about the pain from high gas prices and continue to remind us.
-Are you better off now than you were just three years ago?
HELL NO!
When Toronto’s idiot socialist mayor,David Miller, went on a tangent about banning handguns many Canadians went out and bought more guns. I myself went out and bought a Glock 17 and then wrote an email to Miller’s office thanking him for motivating me to get off my ass and buy a handgun. I never did get a reply to that email. But then again, I’m not a constituent or resident of that city, nor would I want to be.
I’ve never owned a gun in my life. Not because I was anti hunting, sport or target shooting. I simply wasn’t interested. But when they brought in the gun registry I started to change my view. When Police chiefs across the country cheered for the registry I grew even more suspicious.
I’m 76 years old, live alone in a remote area and have no intention of ever being a target for intruders. My house was robbed once when I wasn’t home. Police were informed, but did not investigate telling me they’d never get the perpetrators. That crime did not go into the statistics like thousand of other across the country. So Larry, don’t feed me your crap about crime stats being down. I know better.
Now guess what my next major purchase is likely to be, considering my circumstances and the left’s coddling of thieves and punks. By the way, I don’t live that far from Caledonia, and we all know how that turned out.
it is impossible for any government to control and armed nation. When voting not long gets a people what they desire, they vote with their guns. That is normal evolution.
Countries where the citizenry is unarmed are nothing but political and economic slaves.
Think of all countries are enjoying political and economic slavery …. yes most of them … soon to join that club … all of the European countries as the veneer of civility can not longer be funded.
Any government that doesn’t trust it’s people to own firearms is a government that MUST NOT be trusted.
I really need to start editing my comments … sorry, but you get my point.
..so what do you say? Handgun registry should be abolished?
Yes abolish the hand gun registry too. What’s the difference .. all the hand guns that are used for crime in Canada are not registered or they are stolen. Nearly all in the hands of drug dealers and street gangs.
Law abiding hand gun owners are an asset and they pose no threat to anyone but criminals who may break into their homes and threaten them.
Self defense is god given right, not something that the state has any business interfering with.
“With stupid comments like that how did this idiot become POTUS?
Posted by: Brian Mallard at February 24, 2012 12:23 AM ”
I really hope that was a rhetorical question.
“..so what do you say? Handgun registry should be abolished?
Posted by: xiat at February 24, 2012 11:09 AM ”
Damn right.Show me ONE case where a crime was solved or PREVENTED using the facist LGR OR hand gun registries.With verifable links.
Posted by: Abe Froman at February 24, 2012 10:29 AM
Agree. With the exception of Switzerland where every houshold is armed and every male has mandatory military service. Also the only country in Europe that has remained at peace for hundreds of years with borders unchanged since 1815. Coincidence ?. I think not. Their governance is based on the American constitution but unlike the USA, they have not watered it down with social engineering.
Larry- “Vehicle collisions with deer/Elk/moose are way up, including those causing human injury and death.” Get ride of the vehicles. Problem solved! 😉
ps- I bought my first gun when Clinton was elected.
..and Canada has legitimized hysteria. .
.”and Canada has legitimized hysteria.”
Absolutely,”xiat”.
Canada has legitimized hysteria over gun control, the LGR,the ending of the Wheat Board monopoly,defunding the CBC,AGW,and made the chief peddlar of Global Warming hysteria,Dr.Suzuki,the “most trusted man in Canada”.
Some parts of this Country are all hysteria,all the time.
Anytime I read your posts Xiat I must admit, I’m in hysterics.
I just finished a really cool reloading bench in the area where a formal dining room would normally reside in my house.
I do not trust the government at all to keep me safe, and I often wonder if the point to be made is to get us unsettled in our own domiciles.
I just know one thing, anyone who thinks they need to enter my home without my permission will contract a fatal case of lead poisoning…
“God made all men, but Colonel Colt made ’em all equal.”
Ghost of Ed
“I’m 76 years old, live alone in a remote area and have no intention of ever being a target for intruders.”
Same here….
I suggest you acquire an anti-social dog…size irrelevant…somebody to talk too…with better hearing and character judgement than you.
Yeah cops….minutes away when seconds count…
Remember that advice:
“Give them what they want and nobody will get hurt.”
Bravo Sierra….they’ll mess ya up for $hits and giggles……..
That’s what they came for…loot is secondary……
xiat >
“so what do you say? Handgun registry should be abolished?”
The question is – why shouldn’t the handgun registry be abolished?
Have you been used to having one for so long that like a domesticated dog it must be so?
When I was a kid the police where the ones you went to for trouble. Now we run the other way.
Their more likely to arrest the victim than the crook.
Less fuss, particularly if their a protected class of Immigrant, or faddish group.
People now know it in the gut. Its why they are taking protection in their own hands for personnel survival. This happens when a Nation becomes lawless.
Instead of equality before the Law its now Dependant on race, gender , social status with foreign peculiarities factored in. Judges who couldn’t judge a spelling bee. The lefts love of criminals, with certain groups given the right to harass anyone because of who they are.
Than people wonder why guns are a hot item?
Revnant Dream >
“…Their more likely to arrest the victim than the crook.”
Not only are assailants more likely to be from the “protected” class, but the victims are most likely to have the money to steal from and put back into the system. Victims generally come from the slave class, meaning once ripped off first by the perpetrator and then from the system, they go back to work grinding out ever more revenues for the system.
No incarceration costs, plenty of fines and legal fees, then back out into society to be staked out like a lamb ready for slaughter again.
Joshua Green: “Despite the fact that Obama hasn’t made the slightest feint toward regulating guns [SIC], firearms enthusiasts have whipped themselves into a paranoid frenzy, convinced that this is all just part of some elaborate conspiracy.” This guy is an ignorant idiot: there IS “some elaborate conspiracy”!
Even I know that “Operation Fast and Furious” or “Gunrunner” was/is an Obama administration ploy to both demonize gun ownership and, as a result, bring in gun control. This nefarious scheme seems to have backfired rather badly.
From a Forbes column, “Fast and Furious Stonewallings Call For Eric Holder’s Impeachment” (12/09/11):
“. . . For nearly a year Holder has been avoiding accountability for Operation Fast and Furious, a secret ATF [Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives] program that allowed guns to ‘walk’ into Mexico and right into the arsenals of Mexican drug cartels. . . .
[The guns were then SUPPOSED to be tracked. They weren’t. . .]
“At each stage of this investigation the Obama administration has withheld evidence, heavily redacted documents, harassed whistleblowers and, in the beginning, even denied that any such operation ever took place. Incredibly, just last week the Obama administration even had to formally withdraw a letter it had sent to Congress last February that falsely claimed the ATF didn’t watch guns ‘walk’ into Mexico.
“. . . [Then] the ATF purposely stopped tailing the man who’d purchased the guns. The guns — in this case AK-47s — then went to criminals. . . .
“The [Obama government-distributed] 1,400 or so guns from Fast and Furious that are still unaccounted for will also continue to kill people [one American border guard and hundreds of Mexicans, so far]. . . .”
Honestly, I’ve never owned a gun, but the criminal activity of gun opponents, like Obama and Holder, has seriously made me think of getting in touch with some local gun club . . .
Lookout >
“Honestly, I’ve never owned a gun,……… has seriously made me think of getting in touch with some local gun club . . .”
You should, why not if just for the experience alone. There are allot of women at my gun club involved in a variety of different shooting sports, from just a fun day out plinking, to highly skilled competitive bench shooting, and everything in between.
I tried golf a few times many years ago and never liked it, but glad I gave it a go. You can always rent guns at most clubs and usually with some instruction. The best is when you buy your first gun later on, and know you stuck it to the left by exercising the simple act of freedom to do so.
911 didn’t do it to me, Katrina didn’t either, but Obama has me buying 7.65mm’s in bulk from Cabala’s. I can also thank Obama for my Mk-90, AK-47 for you amatuers.
If I do get a gun, that I’ll be “st[i]ck[ing] it to the left by exercising the simple act of freedom to do so” is a very pleasing thought!
Thanks, Knight 99, for your ideas on this.
Cheers 🙂
7.62X39 ComBloc….an intermediate round of similar performance and ballistics to the old 30:30 Winchester…..
While it is inherently inaccurate….it is cheap…because it was designed to be….
A buddy acquired a coupla TOZs….an export version (Tula Arsenal) of the venerable Moisin-Nagant….308 Win. with a detachable mag, tang safety and “butterknife” bolt handle which makes a mouted scope handier. It is light enough to hump through the boonies, but doesn’t beat ya up….and is relatively inexpensive….a good meat gun for swamp donkey and bear….
Beware 308 Winchester is not identical to 7.62X51 NATO….
http://www.303british.com/id36.html
lookout, one thing missing from the arguments made above for owning a gun, including my argument: ITS FUN.
Shooting is fun. Its a giggle. You should have a gun and go shooting for FUN, and maybe if something bad should happen someday then at least you’ll have one handy.
My experience, when something bad happens its going to take more than a gun to fix it. But guns are like dogs. They are cool in and of themselves, so its more than worth it to have one. Or a dozen, that’s how it goes with guns.
I love shooting, and I’m sorely p1ssed at all the hand wringing MORONS in this country for spoiling my fun. Bastiges.
lookout, my suggestion is to get a gun while you still can. As The Phantom noted, shooting is a lot of fun. For defense purposes, hitting center of mass with a pistol is all you need to do, but once you’ve had enough practice with pistol shooting it is even more fun as it requires a lot of bodily control to get maximum accuracy from what is really quite an unstable platform.
I stocked up on ammo before C68 came out. At that time it was still possible to bring in chicom 7.62×39 at a ridiculously low price. I remember Lever Arms in Vancouver being almost totally filled with 1200 round cases of 7.62×39 and it was cleaned out in less than a week. Won’t say how much I bought but the bed in my Vancouver apartment was a couple of pieces of particle board on top of quite a few boxes of ammo. Lever was also selling SKS’s in 4-packs at the time for $300. As sasquatch has noted, 7.62×39 is not a round noted for accuracy, but given the choice between no gun and a chicom SKS the latter option is far more compatible with survival.
This year I plan on adding an American made M14 to my collection but the cost of feeding it with 7.62×51 probably means I’ll have to take up reloading as well. That will likely set me back $2k or more, but OTOH, most of the ammo I bought in the pre-C68 period has now tripled in value – a far better return than other investments that I’ve made.
I also stocked up before C-68. Very good investment. Reloading will pay for itself many times over.