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Although 52% of the public at large say “no”, 55% of gun owners answered “yes” when Gallup posed the question “Do you think Barack Obama will attempt to ban the sale of guns in the United States while he is president?” Here are the poll results, which were released Tuesday:
Buried at the very end of the Gallup article is the key point that rarely is mentioned in the media coverage of the massive run on gun and ammunition sales since Obama was elected:
President Obama has never said, either on the campaign trail or after taking office, that he intends to push for a ban on the sale of all guns.
And yet, as Gallup continues, gun owners have a delusional belief that is the exact opposite:
Nevertheless, the reports of increased sales of guns and ammunition suggest that certain segments of society — in particular, gun owners — are acting as if this belief is true.
How did gun owners come to this delusional belief? A major factor has been the fact-free attacks on Obama (and Democrats in general) since before the election. Here is a photo from a gun shop in my home town, that I put in a post at Open Salon back on September 1, 2008:
This particular gun shop owner was not alone, both in making an outrageous claim in an attempt to boost sales and in the absence of any real push-back for his irresponsible actions. Here is a story NPR ran back in April, where a gun shop owner in San Antonio was allowed to dance around the truth by claiming his increased sales since Obama’s election were based on a belief by his customers that Obama would ban sales of guns or ammunition:
“It started the day that Obama got elected,” Johnny Dury, who owns Dury’s Gun Shop in San Antonio, tells NPR’s Michele Norris. “It is when everything just went crazy in the gun business.”
Dury says people are buying guns as well as ammunition, creating a shortage of both. He says people are buying the guns to protect themselves because they perceive Obama’s policies as socialist and rewarding those “people who are not working hard.” They are also afraid, he says, of more restrictive gun laws.
“Everybody was scared he was going to take the ammo away or he was going to tax it out of sight on the prices,” Dury says. “So people started stocking up, buying half a lifetime to a lifetime supply of ammo all at one time.”
Listen to the four minute and twenty second audio clip associated with the link. Not once does Michele Norris manage to slip in the information that Obama has never taken a position which could be seen as favoring a ban on gun or ammunition sales.
It seems to me, then, that gun owners have been whipped into a frenzy of buying by gun shop owners and other right-wing reactionaries who are happy to portray Obama as a socialist bent on banning gun and ammunition sales. The media seems happy to play along with this story and only rarely provides the real background that Obama has no such plans. Couple that with the media-fanned frenzy of more and more firepower showing up at Obama rallies and we have the recipe for a disaster. Violence is virtually guaranteed.
21 Comments
Ah, more of the usual he said, she said: Lie. Truth. You decide.
But don’t guns change the equation just a bit?
The gun bubble is starting to deflate. I have friends who stocked up on high priced guns and ammo and are now unemployed and forced to sell in order to make truck payments. The used gun market is about to be flooded.
That’s just great news, considering how unregulated the used gun market is, especially at gun shows.
dynamite! now that the white trash crackers’ unemployment checks are running out, crack dealers will have even more to choose from at pawn shops! i love this country! yeeeehaa!
Focus group research confirms the delusional theory:
http://news.firedoglake.com/2009/10/16/new-report-conservative-republicans-are-delusional-paranoids/
Thanks, I really should have included that link.
It’s a fascinating read, in their own words, too.
See Chris Edelson’s new diary on a group that shares this delusion and is being promoted by Pat Buchanan.
Tipical tacic. Fool the fools to sell more guns.
Hypertribalists have always been willing to believe stupid things. How else do you explain ethnic violence, race wars, apartheid, etc.? People will lie to themselves, because their focus is on adherence to the group, not logic and reason. Logic and reason are for leaders; they’re followers.
Why is this result surprising? You have an expensive commodity that is dangerous, is no practical use to almost anyone, and requires expensive supplies. So who is your market?
* Dumb people.
* People who played a lot of football without helmets.
* Crazy people.
* Criminals (mostly also members of one or more of the above groups).
There are a couple of things that feed this fear:
HR 45, legislation introduced by Bobby Rush (D-IL). Bobby defeated Obama in a Congressional Primary.
HR 45 has no chance of reporting out of committee, but it is the kind of bill that gets gun owners riled up.
A California law AB962 that places some restrictions on ammunition purchases.
This one does give California residents reason to stock up on ammunition.
What I find amazing is that a lot of gun owners that are not hunters think that having a gun will protect them from government, completely ignoring the capabilities of the weapons the government has to ‘train on them’.
Guess they think Waco was a ‘one-off’ situation.
And the news is out that having a gun during a criminal assault leads to more deaths than if one didn’t have a gun during the criminal assault.
But remember, there are 80 odd million U.S. citizens that are illiterate. Thats quite a market. Especially for the largest munitions manufacturer in history.
In a failed last attempt to track down some 9mm range-ammo a few months ago I had the following exchange:
Scene:I walk into WalMart (shudder) in the faint hope that they’ll have some 9mm ammo in stock. When I approach the counter the only people around are myself, the clerk, and a man with his wife. The man was tall, had a handlebar mustache, and spoke with a southern drawl; up in the Northwest it’s unlikely he was actually from the South, and more likely he listens to too much country-music radio.
I enter the scene at the point where the clerk is telling the man and his wife that there’s a four box limit per person per day.
Clerk:“What can I help you find sir?”
Me:“I’m looking for some 9mil, preferably cheap range ammo, but at this point I’d take anything you’ve got.”
Clerk:“Sorry, we haven’t been able to keep that sort of thing in stock for months. I’d send you over to Cabela’s, but I know they’re out too.”
Man:“Son, you ain’t gonna find nothing like that around, what with all that’s been goin’ on. I’ve been buyin’ everything I can get my hands on, and so is everyone else I know.”
Me:“With everything that’s been going on? What do you mean?”
Man:“You know, now that Barack Obama got elected, him and the Dems are gonna be comin’ to take away our guns.”
Me: (looking back quizzically)“Oh. Then what are you going to do with all that ammo?”
Last time I was in a gun shop in California (Buying Hoppes #9 cleaning solvent) I asked about ammo. They had a variety of cartridges on the shelf, clerk said there were spot shortages of low cost cartridges in some popular calibers (.223, 9mm).
I didn’t ask about powder, primers or bullets. I’d guess that reloading supplies are readily available though, it is a pretty small subset of the gun owning public that reloads.
What are they going to do with all that ammo? Shoot at the M1 tank thats coming up their driveway.
I watch a weekly hunting and fishing show out of Portland, OR, called Outdoor GPS. One of the two hosts, Bitsy Kelly, tells viewers to buy ammunition all the time. She talks about the shortage of ammo, blah blah blah. It is the people who are stockpiling ammo who are causing the possible (yet not truly established as fact as far as I know) shortage.
She drives me crazy with the things she spouts. Other than that, it’s a very informative show.
I don’t understand it.
The hyper paranoid delusion that runs in many gun-owning circles.
I own a gun. A 9mm handgun. I like to target shoot and I want to defend myself as I am allowed by law.
Even if deep down in his heart Obama would love to just ban all guns and speak of peace and sunshine and rainbows I think he and his other people are smart enough to know that there’s no way in hell it would happen politically.
If he thinks getting all the conservative and “moderate” Democrats to agree on universal health care has been hard, try asking those same members to vote for anything resembling the removal of legal gun ownership from Americans. It won’t happen.
And here’s the thing. For all the batshit-insane people out there worried about the government coming…they fail to realize that people like me would actually stand with them if Obama or any other President decided he wanted to impose martial law for no reason and try to take our arms to quell dissent.
And people like me who would stand with them at town halls saying ‘DON’T TAKE OUR GUNS AWAY’ if such a thing were being debated.
I don’t believe civilians need to own AR-15s or what have you, but I fully believe in the right to self-defense.
It isn’t going to happen. Get over it.
Any gun you want, as long as it’s pink.
Pink guns are just as effective, just as deadly, can hit the same target / animal / intruder.
But when I’ve suggested this to nearly all my acquaintances with guns they act affronted.
It’s obvious to me that a dark gun is some kind of macho symbol. Require a man to own a pink gun (including a .50 cal machine gun) and he’ll decide he really doesn’t need a gun as much as he thought.
Very interesting idea…