by IN reporter Sean Boone
The election of a Democrat to the White House on top of a nation-wide financial crisis has sparked a sharp increase in gun sales for many area gun shops.
“We’re seeing nearly a 100 percent increase,” says Buck and Bass Sporting Goods owner Rick Bankston.
“It’s more than double than what we would normally see. People are scared of the possibility of new laws.”
Bankston says he’s sold a variety of self-defense weaponry as well as hunting guns that might be outlawed if more provisions are put in place with the Barack Obama administration.
“We saw the same thing happen when Clinton was elected,” he says.
Duke McCaa of Gulf Breeze Firearms says sales are definitely up at his shop, but he has seen a switch in the types of guns people have bought in recent weeks.
“Before the election, with the stock market crisis, we saw an increase in high-end guns,” he says. “Since the election we’ve seen an increase in military style weapons.”
According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, national gun sales have increased since the spring and peaked in October with a 15 percent increase in sales of rifles, handguns and semi-automatics.
“It’s definitely not a black issue (with Obama), just a gun control issue,” says Bankston. “We pretty much all knew it was coming.”