Friday, August 9, 2013

Peace, Love, and What?



Every time something bad happens, everyone overreacts.

Case in point: the horrific shooting that took place in Newtown, CT. The anti-gun crowd responded by calling for firearm restrictions and a ban on magazines of over a certain capacity (usually 10 rounds). The pro-gun crowd responded by buying up everything - and I mean EVERYTHING - on every shelf of every gun store from here to East Jesus, anticipating the legislation that would, in their view, invariably come.

Well neither reality came to pass, and as a pro-gun guy and a zealous guardian of my constitutional rights (not just the second), that made me happy. However, the frenzied buying resulted in a crippling shortage of everything any shooter could ever need.

At first, the shortages most acutely felt were in the areas of those items for which a ban was anticipated most immediately: AR-15 style firearms, and 30-round magazines for same, flew off the shelves within hours of the news of the shooting and did not return for months.

But the frenzy didn't end there: gun guys bought everything they could get a hold of that could possibly hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition, be it pistol or rifle. Supply dried up almost entirely. The joke around the gun shop where I'm a fixture around the cracker barrel (hereinafter referred to as "the shop") was that it was the best gun store without guns in the whole country. People were saying that President Obama (who, trust me, is not held in high esteem amongst the hangers-on at the shop) was the single best gun salesman in the country. And it looked like they were right: in the two months following the tragedy, the shop processed more federal background checks for firearm purchases ("4473's") than in the entire previous year.

And with all these guns being sold, naturally people wanted ammunition to put in them. And it flew off the shelves with an even more stunning quickness than firearms. Stores burned through stock that would otherwise take them three months to sell through in a week. And most of the ammo that was being sold was for handguns. At the shop whole weeks would go by where there was no common handgun ammo to be had at all. No 9mm, no .40 S&W, no .45, no .38, nada.

The biggest surprise: no .22 ammo. .22 long rifle ammo is the single most popular type of ammo in the country. Its use in both handguns and rifles, its low price relative to any other ammo type, and its sheer ubiquity should have ensured that of all ammo, .22LR would be the one caliber that was shortage-proof. Not so. There hasn't been a ready supply of .22LR ammo at the shop in months.

The problem, to hear the ammo manufacturers tell the tale, is that they can only increase production so much: they can run three shifts instead of two, perhaps, but to really ramp up production, they'd need to purchase more of the machines that actually make the ammo. They'd need to purchase facilities to house the machines and hire people to run them. An outlay of this type would cost millions. And then, when supply is finally met, and demand (inevitably) goes down, the companies would find themselves with more production capacity than they'd ever need, have to lay people off, sell real estate, mothball their equipment, and pass on those millions of dollars in capital expenditure on to us, the ammo-buying public.

The laws of supply and demand have, alas, taken hold. Before Newtown, a box of 50 rounds of 9mm - the single most popular round after the .22 - was $12. You could get reloads for $10. Now new stuff is $20, and reloads are $15, and then only if you turn in the brass when you're done shooting it. .22 used to be about $20 for a brick (500 rounds) of decent stuff - say, CCI Blazer - now if you can even find it, it's twice that.

Shooting isn't like riding a bicycle. It requires practice and repetition, and generally speaking the more time you spend at the range (what we like to call "trigger time") the better your shooting skills. The target doesn't lie. Your skills are absolutely quantifiable in the shooting sports, and when it takes a $20 bill to shoot 50 rounds of 9mm through your handgun, the numbers tend to add up with a quickness.

There is a glimmer of good news on the horizon though: at very least some ammo is becoming more available. Components, like brass, powder, primer, and bullet heads are at last loosening up, which for me means that there are boxes of 9mm reloads in relative plenty at the shop. Still no .22 to speak of, or several other calibers that I have (or had) an interest in: .22 Magnum (also known as WMR) hasn't been available forever, and there's so little 9x18 (Makarov) ammo around that it made me sell my CZ-82 in favor of a Glock 17. Can't find any .30cal to feed my beautiful M1 Carbine either:

Click for up-close and personal view

 But I perceive that it's getting there.

Where prices shake out when supply finally reaches equilibrium with demand remains to be seen. But until that time, people will continue pack ratting ammo, and prices will continue to rise, until they walk into the shop and be reassured by full shelves and display cases.

Thanks for listening. Go see a doctor if you haven't recently.

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