Mail Online
June 14, 2016
‘We normally sell two a day, today we are selling up to 15 an hour’: Georgia gun shop reports soaring AR 15 sales while Pennsylvania dealer has sold 15,000 since Orlando massacre
- Omar Mateen killed at least 49 people in a gay nightclub early Sunday morning in a shooting rampage
- Gun sales have soared since the tragedy as enthusiast fear the weapons may be banned or restricted in the wake of the massacre
- Georgia gun shop sold 15 guns an hour yesterday while a Pennsylvania dealer has sold 15,000 semi-automatic weapons since Sunday
- Smith & Wesson, the Massachusetts-based manufacturer of handguns, shares increased as much as eight per cent the day after the massacre
- Shares of Connecticut-based Sturm, Ruger & Company saw a more than nine per cent jump in shares on the same day
- Concern among consumers who are buying guns is that they might be more difficult to purchase in the future if stricter legislation is passed
Sales of high-powered automatic weapons have soared days after the deadliest mass shooting in modern United States history where Omar Mateen use one to kill 49 people in a gay nightclub.
One Georgia gun shop has reported a boom in sales of AR 15s – the semi-automatic weapons used in the Orlando massacre – since Sunday.
Within three hours Monday, 35 AR-15s were sold, around 10 guns an hour. Typically, the store sells just two per day.
Jay Wallace, the owner of Adventure Outdoors in Smyrna, Georgia, as reported a boom in sales of AR 15s – the semiautomatic weapons used in the Orlando massacre – since Sunday
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Wallace said that he had seen many customers rushing to buy the weapons on his website in the past few days out of fear that the weapons could be banned.
Meanwhile, a Pennsylvanian gun dealer says he has already sold around 15,000 semi-automatic rifles on his website since the tragedy.
Jay Wallace, the owner of Adventure Outdoors in Smyrna, Georgia, told Pix 11 that he had seen many customers rushing to buy the weapns on his website in the past few days out of fear that the weapons could be banned
‘There’s one (type of customer) that’s buying them for an investment and the other one is the person that’s buying them because they’re afraid they won’t be available; they’re afraid the government is going to take them away,’ Wallace said.
But he insists that anyone intent on carrying out an act of terrorism will find a way – whether the guns are available or not.
‘If we want to try and get into a terrorist mind, I think they go by their religious beliefs and I don’t think the religious beliefs say kill people with a rifle,’ he told the network.
Pennsylvania gun dealer Tom Engle, who owns Hunters Warehouse in Bellefonte, (pictured) says he has sold 15,000 weapons since Sunday.
The AR-15 assault rifle (file picture) is the same type used in the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school massacre, the 2012 movie-theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado which killed 12.
‘It just says ‘kill people.’ And if they don’t kill people with a rifle, they’ll kill them some other way and you won’t be any less dead.’
A customer in his store, Deborah Tuff, said that she was buying an AR-15 so she was prepared in case of a future mass shooting.
While Army veteran Mike Barnell said he was stocking up on three of the weapons, which cost between $500 and $3,000, as he was concerned that the price would increase with the talk of gun control.
Gun dealer Tom Engle, who owns Hunters Warehouse in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, said that he had seen between 13,000 and 15,000 sales of high powered automatic weapons since Sunday.
Shares of Connecticut-based Sturm, Ruger & Company saw a more than nine per cent jump in shares but today saw a 4.19 per cent fall in prices.
Smith & Wesson, the Massachusetts-based manufacturer of handguns, shares increased as much as eight per cent the day after the massacre but by today, the prices had dropped by 4.46 per cent.
He added that there must be a universal background check for all gun purchases and warned that it is currently very easy for a non-US citizen to get their hands on a weapon.
‘The easiest way is to obtain the hunting license,’ he said. ‘Then they basically can get the gun simple as that. As long as they have an ID of course.’
Along with increased gun sales, there has also been an increase in share prices on the stock market for major gunmakers, according to Business Insider.
Smith & Wesson, the Massachusetts-based manufacturer of handguns, saw its shares increase by as much as eight per cent the day after the shooting, although prices fell by more than four per cent today.
Shares of Connecticut-based Sturm, Ruger & Company saw a more than nine per cent jump in shares on Monday but also fell by around four per cent today.
While Vista Outdoor (VSTO), a company that’s headquartered in Utah and designs, develops and manufactures ammunition and related equipment, saw a two per cent increase on Monday.
Meanwhile the owner of the gun store where the Orlando terrorist bought his murder weapons said he does not feel culpable for the worst massacre in US history.
Ed Henson of St Lucie Shooting Center insists Omar Mateen passed all the background checks when he came in last week.
In two separate visits, the 29-year-old bought a .223 caliber AR-type rifle and a 9mm semiautomatic pistol and which he would later use during America’s worst ever mass shooting.
‘It’s horrible but I don’t make the laws. I abide by them,’ Henson, a retired New York police officer, told reporters in a statement.
‘My heartfelt condolences for the family and victims and I can’t imagine the horror they face.
‘I did everything by the book. I’m not going to be made into a villain.’
The soaring sales come amid fears from gun enthusiasts that the weapons could be banned in the near future after both President Barack Obama and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called for more gun control in the wake of the tragedy.
The US president has been stifled in his bid to curb gun violence since taking power in 2008, by a Republican-led congress and the powerful gun lobby that reject any moves to rein in gun ownership in the name of the Constitution’s Second Amendment.
The soaring sales come amid fears from gun enthusiasts that the weapons could be banned in the near future after both President Barack Obama (right) and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (left) called for more gun control in the wake of the tragedy.
‘This massacre is… a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub,’ President Obama had said. ‘And we have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be.’
On Monday the White House demanded that Congress pass legislation blocking extremists from obtaining assault weapons.
But experts say the deadlock is unlikely to end anytime soon, with gun control a hot-button election issue for both Republicans and Democrats.
‘The Republicans that control Congress are adamantly opposed to gun legislation and they will not give Obama this victory in an election year,’ Adam Winkler, a law professor at the University of California Los Angeles, told AFP.
According to Gun Violence Archive, which tracks gun-related deaths in America, 13,429 people were shot dead in 2015 and 5,962 so far this year. Firearm deaths including suicides stand at around 30,000 per year.
The fact-checking site Politifact said more Americans have been killed by guns in the United States since 1968 than in all wars in the country’s history.
And yet, the paradox: with each new massacre, gun sales spike as enthusiasts rush to stock up fearing a clampdown – with the right to bear arms cherished as fundamental by many in the country.
A similar boom in weapon sales was seen in January this year after President Obama promised to use executive powers to expand background checks for people purchasing guns and increasing licensing requirements for gun dealers in the wake of the San Bernardino mass shooting.
According to surveys by Quinnipiac University, between 88 and 93 percent of Americans support universal gun background checks and more than half back a ban on assault weapons.
While the gun debate is at a standstill at federal level, some headway is being made at the local and state level, says Laura Cutilleta, a senior staff attorney at the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
Since the Sandy Hook school massacre, a number of US states have made it harder for people suffering from mental illness or with a history of domestic violence to acquire weapons, she says.
But Winkler believes legislation can only go so far in stopping would-be attackers.
‘I’m not sure if any new law would have prevented the Orlando shooting,’ he said. ‘All you can do is make these incidents harder for the criminals.’
Three million semi-automatic weapons are estimated to be in circulation in the United States. But even banning them would not necessarily solve the problem, Winkler said, noting that a simple handgun can do tremendous damage too.
Cutilleta meanwhile points to Florida as an example of the dysfunction of the current system.
‘In Florida, there is no background check if you don’t buy a gun through a licensed seller,’ Cutilleta said. ‘So if you’re selling at a gun show, you don’t have to conduct a background check.’
And even with checks in place, that was not enough to stop Mateen. The owner of the Florida store where he bought his rifle, Ed Henson, told CNN he passed the required background check.
‘An evil person came in here and legally purchased a firearm from us,’ Henson said. ‘If he hadn’t gotten them from us, he would have gotten them from other places.’
Omar Mateen, an American of Afghan descent who the FBI believes was radicalized online and who was probed in recent years for suspected extremism, burst into the Pulse nightclub in Orlando early Sunday armed with a .223 caliber AR-15 assault rifle and a handgun. The ATF said that Mateen had purchased the guns within the last week.
By the time his shooting rampage ended, 49 people were dead and 53 others injured. Mateen was killed in an exchange of gunfire with police.
Omar Mateen burst into the Pulse nightclub in Orlando early Sunday armed with a .223 caliber AR-15 assault rifle and a handgun and shot dead 49 people.
The AR-15 assault rifle is the same type used in the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school massacre, the 2012 movie-theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado which killed 12.
It was also the weapon of choice in the San Bernardino attack last December where 14 people died when a couple pledging their allegiance to the Islamic State killed them.
No sooner had news of the carnage hit headlines than politicians jumped into the fray, with Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic White House nominee, training her fire on the ready availability of assault weapons.
‘I believe weapons of war have no place on our streets,’ she told supporters in Cleveland, saying the fact Mateen was at one point on an FBI watchlist should have barred him from purchasing weapons.
‘We may have our disagreements about gun safety regulations, but we should all be able to agree on a few essential things,’ Clinton said. ‘If the FBI is watching you for suspected terrorist links, you shouldn’t be able to just go buy a gun with no questions asked.’
While speaking in the Oval Office on Monday, Obama also warned against downplaying the role of gun control in solving the problem of home-grown Islamic crusaders.
‘If we have self-radicalized individuals in this country, they are going to be very difficult oftentimes to find ahead of time,’ he said.
‘And how easy it is for them to obtain weapons is in some cases going to make a difference as to whether they are able to carry out attacks like this at not.’
‘We make it very easy for individuals who are troubled or disturbed or want to engage in violent acts to get very powerful weapons very quickly. And that’s a problem. It’s a problem regardless of their motivations,’ he insisted.
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