On Mon, 15 Apr 2013 06:48:24 -0500, "Pete C."
wrote:
Ed Huntress wrote:
On Sun, 14 Apr 2013 20:02:12 -0500, "Pete C."
wrote:
Ed Huntress wrote:
On Sun, 14 Apr 2013 16:07:43 -0500, "Pete C."
wrote:
Ed Huntress wrote:
On Sun, 14 Apr 2013 14:13:02 -0500, "Pete C."
wrote:
Ed Huntress wrote:
On Sun, 14 Apr 2013 07:27:52 -0500, F. George McDuffee
wrote:
On Sat, 13 Apr 2013 21:34:25 -0700, Gunner Asch
wrote:
snip
Fascinating indeed. So if they are not buying all that ammo and
stock piling it...where the hell is it?
snip
Good question.
I think that Gunner is asking about where all the ammo is *now*.
First, the ammo that DHS is contracting for hasn't been manufactured
yet.
Sceond, the ammo that's not on the shelves is being hoarded by
paranoid gun nutz from sea to shining sea.
I spoke with one of the plant managers at Remington's Arkansas plant
about two weeks ago. She said they're running three shifts, making
ammo like never before. And, as far as she's heard, the wholesalers
are not sitting on it. It's all going to retail, where gun nutz are
buying it up as fast as it hits the shelves. Some retailers aren't
getting any of it. That appears to be a matter of how the wholesale
distributors are rationing it to certain retailers.
Actually, pretty much all of the current shortage is due to new first
time gun owners who have been pushed off the fence by the attacks from
the rabid anti-gun minority and are now joining the ranks of the pro-gun
majority.
This seems very unlikely:
http://www.people-press.org/2013/03/...-demographics/
Do you have some data that supports these ideas, or is it anecdotes?
I have more data than they have to support that bogus propaganda claim.
I have the various former non gun owners who have asked me for advice on
what to buy. I have the reports from other gun owners I know who have
received the same questions from former non gun owners. There are also
reports from gun shop owners indicating the same.
Oh, that's impressive, Pete. Pew Research Center is generally
considered the least-biased, and one of the best, research
organizations in the world. For you to have more data than they do,
and to have the skills to project from your buddies and the people who
ask you for advice to the entire country is quite a skill.
Not.
--
Ed Huntress
The data is crap. When the data is crap the bias or lack thereof of the
researchers is irrelevant.
And your anecdotes are the anti-crap, I suppose.
It's likely that more guns have been sold to first-time buyers lately,
but the number, in relation to the number of gun owners already out
there, probably is a lot smaller than you seem to think.
It probably isn't since it's causing an extreme shortage in the
marketplace despite the manufacturers operating three shifts. The forums
I follow have plenty of people from around the country and all are
reporting the same thing.
I'll also note that the flawed data for the analysis you linked did not
originate from Pew, it came from other less reputable sources and is
also stale. The key problem that data doesn't address is the fact that a
very large percentage of the population does not participate in polls at
all and those that do don't provide accurate information.
But what's really wacky is the idea that they're buying up all the
ammo. It's probably all gun owners.
Of course it's gun owners, the millions of new gun owners who need ammo
for their first time gun purchases.
One interesting comment from a gun
store, published somewhere over the last few weeks, is that ammo
buyers are asking for one caliber; when they can't get it, they ask
for another caliber; some move on to a third or fourth, and when they
can't get that, they start asking for shotgun shells.
This seems to be the work of some "scalpers" trying to speculate on the
market, waiting in line at stores to buy ammo in hopes of reselling it
for a profit. They are soon going to find themselves with ammo they have
to unload at a loss since the market seems to be starting to normalize
again.
How many first-time buyers do you think go out and buy three or four
guns right off the bat? Those are established gun owners, who have at
least several guns.
Nope, those are the scalpers again. There aren't many of them since most
of these scalpers don't have real employment if they can wait in line
every morning at the stores and thus most scalpers have been limited to
less expensive ammunition rather than actual firearms.
It has also been noted that the scalpers who have been buying $900 ARs
at Wal-Mart to try to resell for $1,500 are likely committing felonies
since they are not FFLs and they are purchasing for the express purpose
of reselling rather than for personal use.
All of these anecdotes are interesting, but you're engaging in a lot
of speculation about who is buying the ammo. That's typical of these
discussions. Everybody has a theory, but few have any data to back it
up.
So we'll wait and see how it shakes out. From some investment reports,
big players are selling gun stocks because they think they're near a
peak and it can't be sustained much longer. But they had a nice run.
--
Ed Huntress