Gun sales are skyrocketing in the capital region.
Fears that a changing political climate will lead to gun control and a Supreme Court decision striking down D.C.’s firearm laws are combining to create a run on local weapons sales, experts said.
“Business is great,” said Bill Kelley, own of The Gun Center of Frederick. “The gun industry, like everything else, was going into a recession. All of the sudden, after November, the entire country decided they had to have [guns] and have them now.”
In Virginia, the state police had 60 percent more requests for firearms background checks in November compared with the year before, records obtained by The Examiner showed.
In Maryland, firearms applications leapt by nearly 20 percent from 2007 to 2008, state police spokeswoman Elena Russo said.
Gun enthusiasts here and around the country say they don’t trust the Obama administration and a Democratic Congress. There was a similar sales rush after President Bill Clinton won election in 1992, but Philip Van Cleave of the pro-gun Virginia Citizens Defense League says he’s “never seen anything like this.”
“People are pulling their hair out,” Van Cleave said.
Some people attribute an increase in gun sales to growing uncertainty over a poor economy.
“It’s scaring people,” said Dane von Breichenruchardt, founder and president of the U.S. Bill of Rights Foundation. He said that some people look to arm themselves when fear of economic crime or of potential civil unrest grows.
Whatever the motive of buyers, the run on guns is creating a healthy economy for gun merchants.
“There actually may be a gun bubble,” said Kris Hammond, who was one of the first District residents to register a handgun after the Supreme Court’s District of Columbia v. Heller decision. “I bought Smith & Wesson stock about three months ago. … Now it’s up 200 percent.”
Gun control advocates say the gun lobbying is exploiting those fears in a cynical effort to recoup its political losses.
“About 80 percent of their endorsed candidates lost to our endorsed candidates,” said Daniel Vice, senior attorney at the D.C.-based Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. “The gun industry saw a good marketing opportunity.”
Gun owners say they’re merely taking the Democrats at their words. They focus mostly on Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.
“Holder has said point-blank that they’re coming after the guns,” said Tom Ciarula, a board member of the Northern Virginia Shooting Facility. “You’re not paranoid if they really are out to get you.”
David Rittgers, a scholar at the libertarian Cato Institute, said that bigger forces were also contributing to gun sales.
“It’s basic supply and demand,” he said. “Between two shooting wars overseas and the expansion of tactical actions of law enforcement, ammunition prices basically doubled in the last five years.” Van Cleave said this was a unique moment for gun enthusiasts. “It’s a perfect storm,” he said. “When you find it, grab it.”
