Gun sales surge in California
By Phillip Reese, Sacramento Bee
Gun sales boomed across California to record levels last year as horrific mass shootings reignited the gun control debate, new state figures show.
A growing number of Sacramento-area gun dealers – about 200 and counting – sold a total of 74,000 firearms in 2012, roughly 20,000 more than in the previous year.
That’s enough guns to provide a new firearm to every resident in the city of Folsom. And sales are still going strong.
Click here for the rest of the story
“Gun control advocates, however, point out that several recent mass shootings have featured assault weapons that are easily obtained from many gun stores”
Silly statement. You already have to pass a background check, and in California, a waiting period. Soon you’ll have to pay for a $50 background check to buy ammo in California as well, not to mention they’re trying to ban lead ammo. The left is trying to get around the 2nd Ammendment by the back door, and will no doubt have a great deal of success in this state. As they claim that those who want to maintain their right to self-defense are reacting hysterically, they themselves react reflexively rather than responding sensibly to gun crimes and weaken the honest citizens while doing nothing practical to punish criminals.
The rules and regulations will not keep weapons out of the hands of criminals, but instead will hurt the poorest people, who live in the most dangerous areas. They are the ones who won’t be able to afford the new documentation and the more expensive lead-free bullets. Kinda seems discriminatory to me.
Oh get a life dog face. There are some people out here that dont think you have any brains or that you are just so $#%@ paranoid you cant do anything but blame someone else for all your percieved problems. I hate guns and will never own or shoot one. So in your eyes that makes me some kind of liberal fanatic. Well guess what, i happen to like being a liberal fanatic so piss off…
bats, your eloquence is astounding.
I absolutely agree that anyone who does not like guns should not own one. And I would never call you names over that choice.
It is everyone’s right to own a gun.
Nature bats last: The Constitution does not require you to own one and no one is trying to force you to. No one is suggesting that a background check be required for you if you don’t want to own one either.
Likewise, no one should prevent me from buying one.
‘Gun sales surge in California’ and the gun and ammunition manufacturers are giddy with delight. Isn’t it nice they have a lap dog like the NRA to spread fear, AND lobby to raise their bottom line?
“no one is trying to force you to”
Unless you live in Nucla, Colorado or Nelson, Georgia.
“It is everyone’s right to own a gun.”
No it isn’t. Convicted felons don’t have that right, do they?
Bigger, look up “Straw Man”.
GUNS SUCK And the only thing they are for is to kill. and yes, Dog face, you do “name call” every time you write your opinion
Kids, grow up. If you can’t play nice in LTN’s sandbox, find another one.
LTN staff
Dogula, I’ve read many comments by NRA members refuting any arguments made that show the NRA in a negative light by using the “straw man” argument, and then go on to intimate that there is a secret conspiracy within the US to take away their guns, or that they need those guns to defend themselves against a tyrannical government, thereby being guilty of the “straw man” argument themselves. I am most definitely anti-gun as it pertains to myself, but never once have I EVER advocated confiscating weapons from those that are emotionally and psychologically equipped to own and handle a gun.
Just because somebody else ‘straw-man’ s it, doesn’t make it right. That’s a kindergartener’s argument. And there is nothing ‘secret’ about the current administration’s desire to take guns away from citizens. They’re being pretty brazen about it.
And actually, I didn’t accuse you personally of not wanting responsible people to own guns. That was Bats who went ballistic for some reason. And continues to do so in his second post.
Dogula, open your eyes to the reality of the NRA and you will see that my argument is ANYTHING but a “straw man” argument. I know that that may just be asking too much of you, being that you are, what I might guess, a card carrying NRA member.
“And there is nothing ‘secret’ about the current administration’s desire to take guns away from citizens. They’re being pretty brazen about it.”
Well that is hyperbolic. Nothing happened or was planned until there were two mass murders that highlighted the ability for broken people to kill a lot of people very easily by using guns.
I’d like to see a more realistic discussion. Guns serve many purposes, hunting, recreation, defense. Making them illegal doesn’t seem to make much sense, logically and with the numbers.
I just want to hear/read someone be honest and say something along the lines of ‘guns are not the problem, but there is a problem with violence in this country, and guns enable those who want to kill to be more harmful’
and then leave out the ‘and if there were more guns, we could all kill the mass murderers’ nonsense.
note: I have a stash of 5k rounds, and can hit a gold ball at 40 yards with iron sights while standing. I am not anti-gun.
The comments here make me believe gun owners and advocates our trying only to protect their freedom and stand up for their own rights. I see comments from the self proclaimed & proud “liberal fanatics” that use profanity and try to push their own beliefs on everybody else and it makes it easy for any educated citizen to conclude who’s right. Personally it makes me sick. Trying to force your own beliefs on someone else and take away the rights others who believe in something different is down right wrong. What is happening to our ‘United States’ of America?
Steve, what has happened is that our country has become the world’s police force. Our economy is based on the military- industrial complex Eisenhower warned us about. Children grow up in our society playing games that are really designed to prepare them for armed conflict. I make no judgement on whether this is good or bad, it is however, a fact. Power comes from the barrel of a gun. Politics is the finger on the trigger. Money controls politics. Simple system.
I am a lifelong Democrat who’s worked on presidential campaigns since the sixties and worked on both of President Obama’s campaigns. In our current political climate, it’s very doubtful if I will be voting for a Republican in my lifetime.
I dislike the NRA, in part because it is such a magnet for political crazies. But I also dislike it because it has wasted its political clout on extreme positions instead of attempting to educate the thinking and reasoning citizens of our country. In other words, I strongly support the right (and perhaps even duty) of American citizens to own firearms for both sporting purposes and self-protection.
My parents gave me my first gun, a .22, almost 60 years ago. I still own that gun, as well as several others. I’ve carried concealed firearms for over 45 years.
I support reasonable laws restricting the truly dangerous of our society from owning guns, and reasonable background checks to identify the folks who shouldn’t have them. But I strongly oppose the efforts of many of my fellow Democrats to demonize guns and their owners, and try to pass unreasonable and ultimately unenforceable anti-gun and anti-gun ownership laws.
I know for a fact that, among Democrats, I’m far from alone. Democratic politicians, particularly in the West, need to pay more attention to reality, at the peril of their political careers.
Would someone here please cite any piece of legislation proposed by this administration that even remotely aims at disarming America’s responsible gun owners? You won’t be able to because it isn’t out there. This fearmongering claptrap only exists because of the gun manufacturers lobby, the NRA, and their continuing stream of BS amplified by some looney-toons websites, hate radio and foxnoos. Let’s get some reasonable background checks in place at least.
Bill, how many more restrictions and background checks would be sufficient, in your opinion?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_laws_in_California
You might also find this interesting. But probably not.
http://www.examiner.com/article/gun-control-proponents-do-not-know-what-they-are-talking-about-part-one?cid=Editorial-NearYou-HP-RecentArticles
Thanks for pointing out California’s attempt at sane gun laws and also for providing the aforementioned amplified claptrap. However, you forgot to cite the gun-grabber legislation of the Pres. Obama administration that is nowhere to be found. All of the NRA’s propaganda is based on this non-existent BS.
Copper & Bijou Bill,
Copper, I’m registerd as an independant but have never voted for a republican once in my life. My Dad gave me my first .22 when I was 9 or 10. Took a gun safety course for kids put on by the NRA. Years later my Dad gave me his old model 62a Winchester pump that his father had given him. That gun is probably over a 100 years old and I just unlocked the gun cabinet and wiped off the dust.
I’m no longer an avid hunter or shooter, haven’t pulled a trigger in over 20 years.I was a member of NRA for a short time in my 30’s but couldn’t tolerate their crazy, far right paranoid rhetoic, so I quit.
There does need to be some sort of more stringent background checks or SOMETHING! Too many shootings by too many unstable angry people.
Bijou Bill, President Obama nor anyone in this administration have said anything about taking peoples guns. It’s the crazy right wingers, the NRA, talk radio and Faux “news” that perpetuate this myth about “Obama is coming for your guns”. It’s all just a bunch of made up crap from the far right.
Old Long Rifle
Dog, I thought that article was going to be about statistics of gun violence, correlating laws and bans to changes in crime or murders. It is about terminology and is irrelevant when the big question is, can we do anything about guns that makes it easier for broken people to kill more easily. You don’t need to know what a flash suppressor is to figure that out.
PS anyone have a S&W Model 17 or 617? It doesn’t get much better than a solid steel double action .22lr when it comes to fun. So much so that if I get this P22Q, I am half way to one of those in price.
I’ve mentioned it before, but I love this target so much everyone should have one. The Spinning Jack by Action Targets. That, a gong, and some golf balls. Good luck finding enough ammo to last you until you get bored.
all you gun lovers are so paranoid
Nature Bats…says “all you gun lovers are so paranoid”…
And you “gun haters” are not?
Nature: how many knives do you have in your house?
Were you subjected to a background check to buy them?
Gun ownership supporters aren’t paranoid, they are Americans who believe in the constitution.
If you don’t want to own a gun, that is your right and gun ownership supporters support your right not to.
We’re not paranoid. We’re paying attention.
cosa pescado, I don’t mind admitting that your Post Script paragraph got to me. I had to get out my latest Guns&Ammo magazine and give my Bushmaster AR-15 a good cleaning.