Friday, November 07, 2008

Prospect of an Obama presidency spurs a shopping spree for firearms

Sales of guns and ammunition "have surged in the last week, according to gun store owners around the nation who describe a wave of buyers concerned that an Obama administration will curtail their right to bear arms," reports Kirk Johnson of The New York Times. "Every gun seller — not to mention every advocacy group for gun ownership that depends on dues-paying members — has an incentive to stoke the concern that can prompt a gun sale. Political uncertainty, gun dealers say, is great for business."

Obama said throughout his campaign that he supports an indivdual right to keep and bear arms and would not take away anyone's guns, "But some gun buyers and sellers never forgot, or forgave, Mr. Obama’s widely reported comment in April to a group in San Francisco that some Americans 'cling to guns or religion' in times of adversity," Johnson writes. (Read more)

However, "Obama has supported renewing the expired federal assault weapons ban, which stops the manufacture of several semiautomatic guns with large magazines,"
so Utahns are buying assault weapons in record numbers, writes Sheena McFarland of The Salt Lake Tribune. "The ban was allowed to sunset 10 years later under President George W. Bush and a Republican House and Senate," she notes. Now gun advocates may to forced to accept this reality once again. They insist that the ban violates their Second Amendment rights, while supporters maintain that such weapons have no place in civil society. (Read more)

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