April 15, 2009
Et tu, WSJ?
The Wall Street Journal ran an article today on the surge in gun and ammo sales during the first few months of the Obama administration, with the problematic title, Fear and Greed Have Sales of Guns and Ammo Shooting Up, and the sub-hed, Buyers Foresee Anti-Weapon Legislation; Collectors Hope to Get Bang for Their Bucks.
The way Jay Chambers sees it, the semiautomatic weapons in his firearm collection might be the most promising investment in his financial portfolio.
Like many gun enthusiasts, Mr. Chambers, a manager for a door wholesaler here, believes President Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress soon will reimpose a version of an expired federal ban on the sale of so-called assault weapons. If such a law passes, he figures his collection -- enough guns, ammo magazines and weapon parts to assemble about 30 AK-47s, AR-15s and other semiautomatic rifles -- could triple in value.
"A guy could easily make a lot of money," says Mr. Chambers, 47 years old, while at Autrey's Armory, a gun store about 20 miles south of Atlanta.
Purchases of guns and ammunition are surging across the country. Nearly four million background checks -- a key measure of sales because they are required at the purchase of a gun from a federally licensed seller -- were performed in the first three months of 2009. That is a 27% increase over the same period a year earlier, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
No one knows exactly what is behind the gun-buying craze. Some buyers say they are stocking up for themselves in anticipation of new gun-control laws, while others say they're worried about deteriorating public safety as the economy worsens.
But it's also clear that part of the gun-buying rally is driven by people like Mr. Chambers who are buying weapons the way others invest in a hot stock. The buying is pumping up prices. Many popular models of guns are back-ordered for a year or more. Some manufacturers are operating plants 24 hours a day. According to the 2009 edition of the Blue Book of Gun Values, the average price of European-made AK-47s -- the famous Soviet-era military weapon now made in several countries -- doubled from $350 last September to more than $700 by the end of 2008.
I find the title problematic because it betrays an anti-gun -- or should I say anti-gun owner? -- bias. One would have thought that a publication like the Journal, dedicated as it is to the inherent worth of capitalism and the investors who power the dynamo that is our economy (sputtering though it may be) would be a little less snarky when it comes to ordinary Joes wanting to get a good return on their hard-earned dollars. The Journal doesn't usually consider wanting to turn a profit to be a bad thing, and I think most fair-minded observers agree that "greed" is a loaded word, one the Journal and its editors don't often use (read: never) to describe investors.
Anyhow, buried in the article is a line that caught my attention. The author says that rapacious gunsellers are taking advantage of American's fears of new restriction on the sale of weapons, "despite signs that major changes in federal weapons regulations are unlikely. " This credulous assertion is supported by this:
The White House says there are no imminent plans to reinstate the federal assault-weapons ban. "The president supports the Second Amendment and respects the tradition of gun ownership in this country," a White House spokesman said.
Really? No imminent plans? That makes me feel so much better. Although, now that I think about it, not having an "imminent" plan isn't quite the same thing as not having a plan, period.
Given that every promise -- and I do mean every promise -- made by candidate Obama comes with an expiration date, I can't say that I find the Journal's parroting of the White House line particularly comforting.
I suspect that when the Obama administration decides it has the votes, the not-so-imminent plan will suddenly become a lot more immediate.
And, given the tone of the article, I also suspect the Journal won't have much of a problem with said ban.
Here's a newsflash for the author, who seems to have missed the forest for the trees: The surge in gun and ammo sales aren't motivated by greed. They are, instead, a perfectly rational reaction to statements about "no imminent" gun bans, statements that make anyone who might even consider someday buying a gun decide that that someday is today.
Posted by Mike Lief at April 15, 2009 11:41 PM
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