Larry C. Johnson: There Is an Unprecedented Gun and Ammo Shortage in America Today

Guest post by Larry C. Johnson

There is a quiet revolution underway across the United States that signals how the average American is reacting to the Democrat campaign of supporting rioting and chaos in major cities. American citizens are arming themselves to the teeth and this includes many who previously supported gun control measures.

If you doubt me, go on-line and try to buy a box of 9mm, 380, 45 or 300 blackout ammunition. If you can find it you will be paying a premium that is without precedent. Around the first of July, you could buy a box of 9mm cartridges for about $12 a box. That works out to .24 cents a cartridge. Today, you are going to pay around a $1 a bullet if you can find it.

I was describing the shortage in Florida the other day to a great friend who lives in Iowa. He thought I was crazy and assured me he could get me 9mm ammo. I egged him on and asked him to buy everything he could and ship it to me. He was certain he could get the .24 cents a bullet price. One hour later he texted me that the local gun stores were sold out. That’s Iowa. Same applies across the country. Ammunition is scarce.

How about buying a gun? Here is a screenshot from Shoot-Straight, which is a pretty large retail seller of firearms and ammunition. Hardly anything is in stock. Same applies to rifles and shotguns. They are not widely nor easily available.

What about reloading ammo? For those unfamiliar with this term, I am talking about shooters who collect empty brass shell casings and put primers, gun powder and bullets into the casing and create their own bullets. Primers in the United States, as of today, are virtually unobtainable. Gone. Bought out.

Selena Zito recently did a great story on a Pittsburgh gun store, SmokeNGuns. She reports:

Things changed dramatically in gun shops across the country in February, when the first concentrated COVID-19 cases in one town were reported out of New Rochelle, New York. “We made more here in … March and April than we did in the last three years,” he says. “It was crazy.”

This is not an isolated case. The same phenomena is taking place in gun stores across the country. The upsurge in gun and ammunition purchase is so dramatic that I have begun to wonder if Black Lives Matter and Antifa were part of some deep dark conspiracy to promote national gun ownership.

The biggest driver in the rush on guns and bullets is first time gun owners. At the start of the Covid panic and the accompanying George Floyd riots, I was standing in line to sell a gun at a local gun store. The store was only allowing a certain number of people inside at one time. As I waited my turn, a middle aged woman came pulled up in her car, jumped out and approached me with frantic questions, “do we have to wait in line and do they have any guns.”

“Yes and yes” I explained. She calmed down and we chatted. Turns out she is a critical care nurse and had never owned a gun in her life. But in light of the chaos she had seen on TV, she was going to get a gun. Her heart was set on buying an AR-15. Here is a representative example:

She had no idea how to load it or shoot it. She had never held one. But by God she wanted one and, as I discovered as I left the store, she bought one. This is not an isolated example. I volunteer as a Range Safety Officer at a local gun range. Every time I have worked the firing line in the last six weeks I have had at least two new shooters show up. This means we have to spend some time showing them how to use their new purchase safely. Last Sunday, for example, I spent 20 minutes with a 74 year old woman who barely weighed 95 pounds, learn how to load and shoot her brand new AR-15.

Shame on the gun store that sold this to the nice lady. It is more gun than she could handle. Unfortunately, not all gun retailers are taking time to ensure that clients get a gun they can actually handle. I can understand that some are reluctant to interfere with people who are keen on buying something they are incapable of using. The reason is that many are panicked. People are buying guns because they believe they cannot depend on local governments and cowardly politicians to protect them and their property. This mood is setting in across the country.

The mainstream media and the Democrats can bury their heads in the sand and pretend that the rioting and looting are isolated phenomena and do not affect the average American. WRONG. People are paying attention and what they see is frightening many to take the first step in protecting themselves. They are buying up guns.

If Democrats genuinely believe that there is a mood in America to take away guns or limit sales of AR-15s and other long guns wrongly perceived as “assault rifles”, they are in for a rude awakening come November. The new gun buys, who have shelled out at least $1000 to buy themselves some peace of mind are not going to willingly surrender what they see as an essential tool for protecting themselves and their families.

There is another metric the shows the intense interest in firearms–a record number of people are signing up to get trained to use their new guns and to obtain a conceal carry permit.

If you are one of the tsunami of new gun buyers but are still uncertain on how to safely hold, load, fire and clean their new purchase, please take the time to get trained. A firearm (I like to call it a “Bullet Firing Device”, BFD for short) is not a toy and is designed to kill. There is no room for faith or belief in the realm of firearms and ammunition. If you “believe” your gun is unloaded you are a fool. You must know with 100% certainty whether a gun is loaded or unloaded. You must never put your finger on any trigger until you are ready to shoot your BFD. And you never point the gun at anyone unless you are intending to shoot that person or persons.

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