Spree for thee, not for me

There is much chatter the past week or so about the run on gun stores — people buying up weapons and ammunition which is thought likely to be banned or made prohibitively expensive under an Obama administration.

The website for Classic Arms — one of my favorite purveyors of fine shootin' iron — tells the tale (I've cleaned up the HTML for readability) :

Let me give you some perspective. In the third quarter of this year, (July thru October) we sold the following:

7.62x39 ammo	361 cases
AK 30 rd mags	783
AK rifles (all types )	243

By comparison, in the 10 days since the election we have sold

7.62x39 ammo	1218 cases
AK 30 rd mags	3855
AK rifles (all types )	572

That is in addition to the AR rifles, Golani rifles, Tantals, and other firearms that have also sold like wildfire. Some of our larger dealer customers have been attempting to place orders for hundreds of firearms with us when we only had dozens in stock.

The traffic on the one and only "shooters" email list to which I am subscribed — a list populated by extremely intelligent/competent technical guys — is all about people stocking up while they can.

I happen to believe that the fears of these people are correct, that the incoming administration will in fact do everything in their power to make firearm ownership as burdensome as possible, and will restrict as much commerce in firearms as they can.

So here I am with a seemingly perfect reason to acquire more shootin' iron... but I have no need.

I'm maxed out. I'm over my limit of what, for health reasons, I can now put to use regularly at the range.

I already own ugly black plastic firearms that, for purely cosmetic reasons, are likely to be banned by this Congress and the new administration.*

Indeed, I've been considering selling off some of my small collection, simply because I can't make use of it any longer.

Sure, I could try stocking up on ammunition and high-capacity magazines before they're made either illegal or prohibitively expensive... but I already have plenty, and again, because of my new disability, I won't likely use it all in the foreseeable future.

I have a bad feeling that what more of us should really be stocking up on is cash.

And maybe canned food and bottled water.

* I have absolutely no confidence in the ability of the GOP portion of the Senate to maintain a filibuster. Not with useless tools like Snow or Specter there. I even doubt the willingness of the leadership to attempt a filibuster; a bunch of spineless weasels, most of them.