Headline in Conway Daily Sun: Worried gun owners stock up. Fear is Obama will take weapons away

graywarrior

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Mon Apr-27-09 10:47 AM
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Headline in Conway Daily Sun: Worried gun owners stock up. Fear is Obama will take weapons away

A piss poor written article with no facts to back it up, no mention that congress would determine whether or not guns would be taken away from anyone. Obviously the story is headlined to stir up controversy in Conway NH. Plus I know the writer...he's an idiot. Fell free to write the paper.

http://www.laconiadailysun.com/pdf/2009/4/27.pdf

I posted the entire story because they pull the paper unless you subscribe and there's no way in hell I'd pay for this rag.

CONWAY � North Conway gun dealer Chris Kanzler used to take phone calls every day from dis-tributors eager to push new stock. Now, desperate for ammo and a dwindling supply of fi rearms, he's dialing them- and getting voice mail.A consumer crush on so-called tactical weapons � tuned-down civilian model assault rifl es and home defense guns � followed the election, a sign gun owners fear the Obama administration will take their weapons away.

Worried gun owners have been great for busi-ness, spending big and driving up demand. In fact, it hasn't really let up as the crumbling economy saddles much of retail the industry with fear and headaches, dealers say.But now dealers and distributors are looking at their shelves and wondering, how do we get more guns and ammo? �Right up the distribution chain, these guys are shaking their heads, we don't know what's going on,� said Kanzler, who owns White Mountain Firearms.

Even Wal-Mart is running out of ammo

Unlike most retailers in the area, the problem is not getting people through the doors, it's getting product in the store.�The unique problem has some local machine shops running three shifts, churning out gun parts.

Tim Anderson, general manager of MacLean Precision, said gun parts are only a small part of the Madison shop's business, which is now machin-ing parts for prototype models that won't hit shelves for at least a year. So his shop isn't running hard and heavy with the gun craze.

But, he said, EMM Precision in East Conway has been cranking to keep up with demand from back-logged makers like Bushmaster.�They're out straight,� Anderson said of EMM. �You'd be surprised how many parts guns have.�Like the the guns, the ammo supply too appears spent.Ken Clark, who owns Riverside Arms in Tamworth, said he has always shied away from away ammo sales. �Walmart would undersell me,� he said.

But now, the Mega-retailer is phon-ing the little guys, looking for bullets.�That's when I knew it was pan-demic, and not just the little shops,� Kanzler said. Everything from small caliber .22s, popular commonly used for plinking, to assault rifl e ammo and primers are hard to get. Kanzler believes nearly fi nished weapons may be sitting on backorder, waiting for a final touch, perhaps a missing part from a machine shop, like a trigger.�Say it's a $700 gun, and you've got $698, and you're missing the $2 you need to ship it out the door,� he said.He said manufacturers have items on backorder in the tens of thousands.

Windham Maine-based Bushmas-ter, which specializes in assault-type weapons, is waiting to ship more than 100,000 back-ordered guns, he said. A Bushmaster spokesman did not return a phone call.�I wouldn't be surprised,� said Clark, who specializes in collectors' guns. He said gun-maker Ruger hadn't produced more than 6,000 in a single year of a model in ages. The day after the Obama election, the company took 6,000 orders in a one-day distributors' show, he said. Kanzler said he has no idea why production has failed to meet demand. Maybe producers held off on expan-sion in an uncertain economy.�Everybody seems to be caught of guard,� Kanzler said. �I'm flabber-gasted.�Clark said it's happened before, and the industry snapped back.�It's been proven before, with the Democrats in power the fi rst thing they start squawking about is gun control,� he said.

In 1994, he said primers flew off the shelves in response to anti-gun legis-lation. But stock recovered.�It caught up eventually,� he said.In the meantime, with gun buyers clamoring for product, it's going to cost.Last year Clark charged $835 for a Bushmaster. �Now I'd charge $1,600 if I could get them,� he said.�If you don't have a gun and you want one, prepare to pay the price,� he said.