Amber, Okla. resident Russell Slaton, a long-time gun owner, shops for a firearm at H&H Shooting Sports in Oklahoma City.
“We will get through this,” Hall said. “We survived Clinton and we sure as heck will survive Obama.”
As we saw this morning, the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted by over 200 points, following word of Obama’s re-election. However, Smith & Wesson and Ruger both saw their stock prices shoot up, indicating that gun sales are set to skyrocket due to fears that Obama will seek – along with liberal members of Congress – to further tighten gun-control regulations.
As Hall explains it, in the months leading up to the 2008 election, H&H experienced what he calls the “first wave” of gun buyers. These were older, “panic” buyers who were concerned where a Hillary Clinton – and ultimately Barack Obama – presidency would do to the 2nd Amendment.
The second wave, appearing in droves at H&H in the months after Obama was inaugurated, were informed gun buyers and people who stocked up on ammunition. These were folks in their 40’s and older.
It was the third wave, Hall explained, that really caught his attention.
These buyers, who began showing up at the store in September 2011, were tech-savvy thirtysomethings who weren’t buying out of a sense of panic but by being prudent about their safety. Many of these younger people have “liked” H&H on Facebook (more than 9,000 so far) and are part of the online community who now see a gun as a “valuable asset.”
Hall handed this reporter a fact sheet noting that the average gun buyer is in their mid-to-late 30’s and pretty evenly split between men and women. Additionally, ethnically it is “across the board.” These buyers are also high school graduates or have some college. They are also married and are “very focused on learning everything they can” about firearms.
And recently, Hall and his staff saw an uptick in gun and ammo sales soon after the second presidential debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney. That was the debate where Obama performed well and addressed a question about banning assault weapons, as well as getting background checks that would keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill and criminals.
Since then, Hall and his staff have been discussing how they will handle “what we think is coming,” in terms of sales.
And on the “Shooting Wire” grapevine, rumors are running wild about plans by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) to ban “assault weapons” sometime during Obama’s second term.
Handing Red Dirt Report a copy of the “Shooting Wire” feature, written by Jim Shepherd and headlined “Rumors, Acquisitions and Elections,” released on Nov. 5th, it reads: “(L)ongtime gun-hater Dianne Feinstein’s legal staff held meetings on Friday with FTB/ATF legal staff to discuss a new ‘Assault Weapons Ban’ Madame Feinstein would be looking to push through Congress if President Obama wins re-election.”
It adds that “the items that would lead to a ban would ban pistol grips and ‘high-capacity’ magazines, eliminate any grandfathering and ban sales of ‘weapons in possession.’”
Hall said the word about this hasn’t “hit the street” yet and when it does, he expects H&H will see an uptick in sales.
“Yeah, when this Feinstein crap comes out, they’ll come out (and buy guns and ammo),” Hall said. H&H will handle the surge, while some of the smaller sellers will sell out with “wall-to-wall” customers.
And while a lot of other states might engage in “panic buying,” Hall said this state is a little more pragmatic.
“One good thing about Oklahomans is that they don’t overreact. But they are prudent,” he said.
And one of the problems gun sellers like H&H face is not so much the lack of produced guns and ammunition, it is the delivery side. It’s slow, he said. But replacements do eventually show up so they can stock back up.
Right now, Hall said, he and his staff just don’t know how things will play out over the next few months. Here in Oklahoma, we see a report that says gun sales have “increased exponentially after the results of last night’s election.”
Just in the past week, Hall has been giving interviews about Oklahoma’s new Open Carry law. And now, with the re-election of a president who is hostile towards the 2nd Amendment, in all likelihood, gun and ammo sales will once again go through the roof.
“I think everyone is trying to get their arms around what we need to do,” Hall said, adding, “The evidence is that we’ll be incredibly busy.”
For more information go to www.hhshootingsports.com.
Copyright 2012 Red Dirt Report
By Andrew W. Griffin
Red Dirt Report, editor
