According to my friend Bill who works in one of the larger gun stores in Georgia, the guns and ammo purchasing frenzy has subsided a little, but it is still going at a steady pace. I was in the store Saturday afternoon. There were probably 35 customers there, and most were buying. There were four or five with gun purchases in various stages of completion, and several more were waiting in line. I heard one customer who was buying some kind of black rifle ask Bill, "Is it Christmas, or what?" Bill said, "No, it's just Saturday."
There is plenty of ammo in the store, and people are still toting it out by the case. I counted 20 cases of 1000 rounds of 7.62x39 on the floor. There was about that much .223, and a bunch of .308, and some calibers I'm not too familiar with. There were three or four different brands of all the popular pistol ammo. People were stacking it on the counter.
Keep in mind, this isn't a large city, just a sleepy little one traffic light town fifty miles from a population center.
Bill is in my Sunday School class, and we were discussing it before class Sunday morning. He said he thought the recent terrorist activity on Christmas Day, the bin Laden tapes, and the pronouncements by the CIA and HL security heads that there will almost certainly be an attack this year just keeps the flames fueled. He said the ammo they had on the floor was just a small percentage of what they had. According to Bill, they have pallets and pallets of ammo in their warehouse, which is right next to the store. He said the reps from their distributers and the ammo companies tell them there will surely be another shortage this Fall. He said they told them the same thing this time last year and they were caught short because they didn't really take it seriously. Ironically, he said, one of the hardest kinds of ammo to find is the old standby hunting ammo from the major manufacturers.
I think those folks who are waiting for ammo prices to come down might be waiting a long time. Bill said prices have stabilized, but there isn't much chance of them coming down. I guess I better buy a little more before it starts going up again.
There is plenty of ammo in the store, and people are still toting it out by the case. I counted 20 cases of 1000 rounds of 7.62x39 on the floor. There was about that much .223, and a bunch of .308, and some calibers I'm not too familiar with. There were three or four different brands of all the popular pistol ammo. People were stacking it on the counter.
Keep in mind, this isn't a large city, just a sleepy little one traffic light town fifty miles from a population center.
Bill is in my Sunday School class, and we were discussing it before class Sunday morning. He said he thought the recent terrorist activity on Christmas Day, the bin Laden tapes, and the pronouncements by the CIA and HL security heads that there will almost certainly be an attack this year just keeps the flames fueled. He said the ammo they had on the floor was just a small percentage of what they had. According to Bill, they have pallets and pallets of ammo in their warehouse, which is right next to the store. He said the reps from their distributers and the ammo companies tell them there will surely be another shortage this Fall. He said they told them the same thing this time last year and they were caught short because they didn't really take it seriously. Ironically, he said, one of the hardest kinds of ammo to find is the old standby hunting ammo from the major manufacturers.
I think those folks who are waiting for ammo prices to come down might be waiting a long time. Bill said prices have stabilized, but there isn't much chance of them coming down. I guess I better buy a little more before it starts going up again.
