Americans bought millions of guns in 2020 — and millions of those guns were bought by first-timers.
More than 21 million people completed a background check to buy a gun last year, shattering all previous records, and a survey found that 40% identified as new gun owners — many of whom belong to demographics not normally associated with firearms, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearm industry trade association.
According to gun analysts, sales are up for the 13th straight month, and demand is still high.
Indeed it is. Many of our cities threw away 30 years of hard work bringing violent crime down to a historic low, only to see it spike right back up after they defunded and demoralized police officers. Cops are leaving in droves, and New York is swiftly returning to the bad old days of daytime street murders.
The easiest prediction I’ve ever made was predicting the death and chaos the Democrats’ policies would lead to, and how swiftly we would get there.
Biden hasn’t even officially banned menthol cigarettes yet. When he does, that’s going to create an underground market similar to the one that figured in the police choking death of Eric Garner in 2014 (when Biden was veep and apparently learned nothing). Which means more street crime, and diverting police resources that are already stretched too thin.
Where there are no (or fewer) police, Americans go buy guns and become their own police. That’s the lesson of 2020, as it was the lesson of the “rooftop Koreans” in Los Angeles in 1992. If the local government shirks its first responsibility, public safety, you’re on your own. Local governments in many of our cities have done exactly that. The Second Amendment was never about hunting. It’s about the natural right of self-defense.
The problem facing gun owners now, whether they’re first-timers or have owned guns forever, is that a box of ammo is hard to find.
Last month across social media the hashtag “#ammoshortage” began to trend on TikTok and other social media platforms, where there have been images posted of those long lines at retailers and downtrodden customers who went home empty-handed.
For the firearms industry, 2020 and 2021 have been boom times, and last March to September saw a ninety-one percent increase in sales. There were more than 5.1 million first-time gun buyers last year.
Numerous factors included the novel coronavirus pandemic, the civil unrest that began last summer, and then calls by candidates, including then-candidate Joe Biden, for new gun control. That has been good for the industry but has created issues for shooters.
The main issue being, what can you shoot, and how can you properly learn to use your new firearm if you can’t even find range ammo?
The pandemic shutdowns contributed to the shortage, as has the surge in buying firearms. Everything you can find costs more.
The increased demand has certainly resulted in higher costs whenever ammunition even shows up on store shelves. According to recent reports, a box of fifty rounds of 9mm was around $10, but now the same box can sell for upwards of $35.
Honestly, I haven’t seen 9mm as low as $35 in a while. Fifty dollars or more is closer to what I see.
Biden wants to disarm Americans as much as he can while his party engineers the crime wave we’re suffering. To some extent, we’re already disarmed. What good is a gun if you can’t buy ammo?
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