When triple-amputee vet Airman Brian Kolfage & Steve Bannon sent me on a worldwide border wall tour late last year, I visited 7 countries, many of which had put up border walls to stop migrant caravans & ISIS fighters from the Middle East reaching their cities. I was also in Hong Kong embedded with the protesters who were fighting the Chinese Communist Party, and I went to Israel’s border with Gaza & Egypt. I also work on the border where we build border walls & where cartels are highly active.
Admittedly, I felt safer in many of the places I visited than many American cities I have been in while doing my job as a photographer. I was robbed by three men late one night in Detroit last year after covering an event Kolfage & Bannon put on for We Build the Wall, and I have been threatened numerous times by Antifa when I covered protests & riots here in California. I’ve never owned a firearm but after filming the riots & looting here in Sacramento last month, I’ll be purchasing several. Apparently, many Americans are doing the same. Story below. (You can see my border photography & videos from my worldwide border wall tour by liking my page on Facebook here)
“Gun sales have skyrocketed so dramatically that now some gun retailers are claiming they are nearly out of guns and ammunition.
In the wake of violent protests and looting across the nation, gun sales set a record nationwide for the month of June, The Washington Free Beacon reports. On Wednesday, Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting released a study showing over 2.3 million guns were sold in June, an increase of at least 145.3% compared to June 2019, short of the record 2.5 million in March, but far outstripping the estimated 1.7 million guns sold in May and 1.8 million in April.
The study stated, “Likely single handgun sales increased year-over-year by 177.5% whereas single long-gun sales increased year-over-year by 114.3%. All other likely background check-related sales increased year-over-year by 74%. This includes so-called ‘multiple sales’ where the allocation between handguns and long-guns cannot be determined from the data record.”
At the rate guns have sold in 2020, the final total of the year would set a record. Brandon Wexler, owner of Wex Gunworks in Delray Beach, Florida, told the Free Beacon, “Obama was the best gun sales in the country, they claimed. No, COVID-19 is.” He added, “Pretty much everything is out of stock. We have been doing it since the late ‘70s and have never seen literally no supply available. As of last week, at all major distributors you could not get any guns. Everything was literally sold out. Can’t even get hearing protection.”
“Our sales within just a few thousand dollars of doubling in June 2020 as compared to 2019. Popular guns and ammo SKUs have been sold out for some time and now it is becoming a challenge to keep anything in stock that is among the higher demand categories … things like handguns, home defense shotguns, AR/MSRs and the associated ammo, particularly 9mm,” Rex McClanahan, president of Bud’s Gun Shop echoed.
Windham Taylor, outreach manager for Ammo.com. added, “Things are not slowing down in the ammo world at all. Sales have continued to soar throughout June despite major shortages from nearly all suppliers due to the sustained demand from our customers. We are working hard to keep up with demand and will continue to provide the best customer support possible.”
McClanahan admitted, “Distributors and manufacturers are all struggling now, several months into this extremely high demand market. The current status of the supply chain is already overwhelmed with both no end to the current demand in sight … and a presidential election coming up in just four months.”
After the gun sales were reported in May, Mark Oliva, a spokesman for National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry’s trade group, noted, “Our recent survey of firearm retailers shows us that 40 percent of these gun buyers are buying a firearm for the first time. Of those first-time gun owners, 40 percent are women and these buyers are overwhelmingly purchasing handguns for personal protection.””
Jeff Rainforth is the photographer & news editor for Airman Kolfage’s We Build the Wall, Inc.
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