FORT WORTH -- Gun sales are booming.
Enthusiasts are stocking
up on guns and ammunition, and some in the industry are wondering
whether sales are spiking as they did after Democrat Barack Obama won
the presidency in 2008.
That rush created a nationwide shortage.
"We're
at the top of the roller coaster and we're about to plummet down the
side," said DeWayne Irwin, owner of the Cheaper Than Dirt gun store in
north Fort Worth, which set a sales record for the month of February.
"It's fixing to happen again. I don't know if it will be to the same
extent it was before, but I see it coming.
"Look who the
Republicans are trying to put against Obama," he said. "It's the
Keystone Kops and people are getting scared. People are terrified he's
going to get re-elected and then he won't care about getting votes next
time. He'll just pass whatever legislation he wants."
Some say the
uptick in sales at gun stores could also be linked to anything from the
arrival of tax refunds to a spending spree by fans of the National
Geographic Channel's Doomsday Preppers show, which chronicles people preparing for the end of the world.
Nationwide, more people than ever are buying firearms.
Last
year, the FBI received more than 16.3 million inquiries from people
running criminal background checks on potential gun buyers. That's up
from 12.7 million in 2008 and 11.4 million in 2007, FBI records show.
Texas
had around 1 million such requests in each of the past four years, the
second most, behind Kentucky, which had nearly double that. Officials
say Kentucky's numbers are high because fresh background checks are run
every month there on gun owners with concealed-weapons permits.
"I'm
constantly getting questions from people in the gun community about
this [issue]," said Alan Korwin, author of nine gun law books, including
Gun Laws of America, and operator of gunlaws.com. "People are concerned that if Obama wins, as a lame duck, he will go after firearms in a way we have never seen before.
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http://www.star-telegram.com/2012/03/03/3781758/some-say-re-election-fear-is-driving.html#storylink=cpy
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