– Bernd Debusmann is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are his own. —
In the first two months of this year, around 2.5 million Americans bought guns, a 26 percent increase over the same period in 2008. It was great news for gun makers and a sign of a dark mood in the country.
Gun sales shot up almost immediately after Barack Obama won the U.S. presidential elections on November 4 and firearm enthusiasts rushed to stores, fearing he would tighten gun controls despite campaign pledges to the contrary.
After the November spike, gun dealers say, a second motive has helped drive sales: fear of social unrest as the ailing economy pushes the newly destitute deeper into misery. Many of the newly poor come from the relentlessly rising ranks of the unemployed. In February alone, an average of 23,000 people a day lost their jobs.
Tent cities for the homeless have expanded outside a string of American cities, from Sacramento and Phoenix to Atlanta and Seattle, for people who are living the American dream in reverse. First they lose their jobs, then their health insurance, then their homes, then their hopes. The encampments are reminiscent of Third World refugee camps.
Often former members of the middle class, tent dwellers’ accounts of their plight to television cameras have a common theme: “I never thought this could happen to me.” Unlike the victims of Katrina, the 2005 hurricane that destroyed much of New Orleans, many of the newly-poor are white.
The FBI says it carried out 1,213,885 criminal background checks on prospective firearms buyers in January and 1,259,078 in February, jumps of 28% and 23.3% respectively. Keen demand turned the stocks of publicly-trade firearms companies like Smith & Wesson (up 80% since November) and Sturm Ruger (up more than 100%) into shining stars on the New York Stock Exchange.
There are no statistics on how many guns are bought by people who think they need them to defend themselves against desperate fellow citizens.
But, as columnist David Ignatius put it in the Washington Post, “there’s an ugly mood developing as people start looking for villains to blame for the economic mess.” In November, an analysis published by the U.S. Army War College’s Strategic Studies Institute listed “unforeseen economic collapse” as one of the possible causes of future “widespread civil violence.”
The American economy is down but not out, and in mid-March some experts reported signs that the pace of the decline was slowing. But it hasn’t slowed enough to sweep away the sense of anxiety and fear that comes through in many conversations and commentaries about the future of this normally optimistic country.
While Obama’s approval rating remains high, at 59%, almost two thirds of the population thinks the country is on the wrong track, according to a poll commissioned by National Public Radio in mid-March.
“What is really remarkable about all this is that there hasn’t been social unrest,” remarked an executive with business interests in Latin American countries where riots and street demonstrations in response to economic squeezes are routine. “The conditions for it are all there.”
ANGER ABOUT BAILOUTS
Anger is building. Just under half of those surveyed in a poll by the Pew Research Center this month expressed anger about “bailing out banks and financial institutions that made poor decisions.” The poll was taken before details became known of the full extent of the bonus-paying spree to members of the very team that brought the insurance giant AIG close to collapse.
The government propped up AIG with close to $200 billion and now owns 80% of the company. The argument that $165 million in bonuses had to be paid under contractual obligations went down particularly badly with workers of the three U.S. car companies whose leaders appealed for support from the Bush administration last year when the economic crisis gathered steam.
One of the conditions for the billions that were dispensed to the car industry was that contracts between auto workers and their union, the United Auto Workers, had to be renegotiated to cut costs. The union agreed, and the question arises: are contracts with blue-collar workers less binding than those with highly-paid derivatives traders?
Some see this as another sign of the inequalities that Obama promised to address. Remember his famous exchange with Joe Wurzelbacher, aka Joe the Plumber, during a campaign stop? “I think when you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody,” Obama told him.
There’s less wealth to spread around now as trillions of dollars has evaporated with increasing speed in the deepening crisis. In housing alone, more than $5 trillion has vanished. The gap between rich and poor, a gap of Third World proportions, has not changed. A full-time worker, on average, made $37,606 last year, considerably less than in 1973, adjusted for inflation.
While CEOs made 45 times as much as workers in 1973 they make more than 300 times as much today, according to Holly Sklar, author of “Raise the Floor, Wages and Policies that Work for All of US.”
To what extent those gaps will shrink under Obama remains to be seen and the outlook for swift action is not promising. There are, in fact, not many things for which the outlook is promising. Exceptions include Smith&Wesson. They expect revenue to double within the next three years.
You can contact the author at Debusmann@Reuters.com.
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Guns are not the problem its the crinimals are overly lenient judges that are the problem
Brian McMurdo’s comments are notable to me.
As are those of Geoff Morris
April 3rd, 2009 6:04 pm GMT
”
I don’t own a gun to kill people. I own a gun to keep from being killed. I don’t own a gun because I’m paranoid. I own a gun because there are
real threats in the world. I don’t own a gun because I’m evil. I own a gun because I have lived long
enough to see the evil in the world.
I don’t own a gun because I hate the government. I own a gun because I understand the limitations of government.
” etc.,
Yep. But I also own a gun because of those evil insurgent paper targets !!! Man, they sure feel lucky…
But now I also know how to reload, and yes, you can find all the stuff, AND ammo, you just gotta be persistent.
To anyone reading this thread who has made a first time firearm purchase recently or is considering doing so… Firearms for personal defense is the epitome of “Martial Art”.
Study, get training, regular practice, or you might be better served by ordinary running shoes and a baseball bat. This is serious business, ownership does not equal ability, or worse, “safety”, and it is so very easy to go to jail because you thought you were doing something right ! or get sued ! etc., bad bad…
SAFETY SAFETY SAFETY
Interesting article. I think the gun issue–always flammable when people in the US begin talking, illustrates the great divide between Europeans and Americans, and regardless of which side you fall upon, it is not a simple issue to solve (unless, perhaps, you are simple yourself). The writer seems to be fairly ignorant of some basic facts about the US–outside of metropolitan areas much of the land is remote from law enforcement, so for many people gun ownership is just pragmatic–the sheriff might take upwards of an hour to get to my home, as an example. It is true that there are a population of paranoids who cache guns and walk around in camouflage, expecting an apocalypse courtesy of the Democratic (or Republican) Party, but I think most Americans find this thinking a little simplistic. Also, holding up Canada and Europe as examples of low crime areas for us to follow are a bit of an apples an oranges argument–Canada is still basically culturally homogenous (I know, I know, the Quebecois are a distinct cultural group) but the US is a true melange of people, and more so every year. By the way, I’m not sure what part of Canada you’ve travelled in, but having travelled extensively there in my life, I can think of quite a few very down and out places in Canada that are full of gun toting rednecks–it’s not a uniquely American experience. And as to shameful poverty, go talk to some of the tribes in northern Ontario and ask them what they think of the majesty of Canadian justice. The British, by the way, can take great pride in laying the foundation for much of our strife by their enthusiastic promotion of slavery for about two hundred years of our history, so English moralizing is a little bit disingenuous. It’s one of those eternal legacies of our birth nation, right there with the Magna Carta and Yorkshire pudding. It’s also ironic that many people who are so passionate about wanting to understand the nuances of societies around the world are so tone deaf to that concept when it pertains to the US. I had to laugh when I read about clean and safe European cities that we should emulate. That one falls under “another good story ruined by an eyewitness”. The description of “tent cities” of homeless makes it sound like there are Darfurs all over America. Yes, I’ve seen the encampments, I’d liken them more to tent cul de sacs or whatever. They exist but to say they are extensive is just BS. The writer’s content may sell well in England, but I think it was a pretty shallow and ignorant attempt at describing an element of our society that is a little more complicated than his breathless polemic described. Finally, I’m always fascinated at the amount of knowledge that British and other Europeans have of our country and our beliefs, since it is so rare to find you here visiting. To base your opinion of America on movies, TV and slipshod journalism like this screed,that the majority of Americans are paranoid, gun caching boobs who hate the government (which we just peacefully elected) who gleefully ignore vast swaths of tents full of starving homeless stretching to the horizon would be like me determining that all Brits are a bunch of tea drinkers who survive on bad food, crappy weather and all have amazingly bad teeth, courtesy, no doubt, of an amazing national dental package. All the while surrounded by decaying ghettos of ranting immigrants bent upon imposing Sharia law and destroying you. Now that would be a generalization, right? Perhaps the lesson for us all would be ‘”people who live in glass houses should not throw stones”. Best, etc. etc.
“But the conservative culture in America is behind them 100%.”
-Posted by Tom
No its not. Not every conservative is religious. I’m an atheist and I despise Obama’s domestic policy. Wake up. The liberal movement is fueled by old theories recycled from anarchists movements from the 70s. Each successive president swings further and further from the middle, and wields more and more power. Stupid debates about gun rights,abortion, and capital punishment are clearly spelled out in the constitution. The right to life. And rule #2. Its not rocket science. I would love to jump into the TV argument, but unfortunately the people I would be talking to are watching something completely useless instead of reading the news or book or even interacting with their families.
This is about the conservative movement, the Christian GOP, their media, politicians and rank & file and their egregiously inciting and driving to violent anger the extremist lunatics among them…..
……..whom they know full-well are listening……
Their numbers include the Christian White Supremacist militia movement… These irrational extremists are convinced that drastic measures are in order…by the likes of Limbaugh, the entire corporate media, GOP and their politicians, Beck, Hannity and company….and they strike!!…hard!!
And many people have been murdered, maimed and had their lives destroyed by them.
But the conservative culture in America is behind them 100%.
I am a gunsmith and almost all of my customers (recently there have been a lot more of them) are hard line Republicans who do this “buy all we can” every time a Democrat takes office. I do hear the occasional “stock up on canned goods and water”, but not because of the economy, but because “Democrats are going to run this country into the ground.”
[...] may get that bad and burglary becomes a pastime for some here in the UK who are driven to crime. The Great Debate
Since 1998 (maybe sooner, I don’t know), a noticeable proliferation of violence on TV occurred, in my view. There were less shows focused in other aspects of human life; the most admired shows often show-cased brutality, even if ‘the good guys’ won in the end. Whether profit was the motive for proliferation, as these shows might be quicker and easier to write and produce; or, whether a change in public taste came first, I do not know. But, now, I believe, a general public taste for viewing violence and speaking in cruel, brutal terms has developed.
Hallmark channel is producing new movies which focus on peaceful resolution of family conflicts, and these movies are well-done and seem very popular among many people I know; we turned with relief and pleasure to these hopeful, yet honest films. There must be other channels doing the same thing. But, too many Americans in crisis are choosing to make a violent ‘end’ to their difficulties. This month alone, in the U.S. there have been more than 50 deaths from such choices, according to the press.
Hopefully, we as a people will generally continue to choose non-violent, constructive responses and solutions out of our very difficult circumstances. On April 15th, there will be a series of ‘Tea Parties’ across the country to express opposition to the direction the country is now taking. I am proud of these Americans for choosing this non-violent, organized way to focus and channel their frustrated energies and promote their visions and goals for our country.
I lived in California for the last 35 yrs of my life. In the inner city, guns go hand in hand with growing up. Either you’re using it to get your way or respect, or its being pointed at you, loved one or bystander near you. Guns are a part of an American’s heritage but that cowboy story is ancient history. I just bought an S&W sig .40cal handgun for my first gun purchase. I’ve practiced many times with friends in the desert and in gun ranges but didn’t own until now. Dear Uncle Sam is on life support. The good citizens have continous gun law restrictions put on them each year in an attempt to punish the criminals with guns and lower good citizen ownership. But what criminal buys a gun in a gun shop legally? So we buy pea-shooters to defend ourselves while the criminals get the assault rifles and MGs underground. Our rights are slowly diminishing thanks to the homeland security policies Bush has implemented. Our right to exercise freedom of speech can get us thrown in detainment centers they now have set for so called convicted terrorist or illegal immigrant migration into the US.By the time we notice all the constitutional violations our former and new administration has committed the dollar will completely fail, and the NWO will arrive. If Americans riot their city over a NBA championship game, imagine what will happen when the banks fold, mass unemployment, major retail stores and supermarkets fail and the law enforement gets pulled back out of our city to let us destroy each other before martial law kicks in. “The man with the gun will make the rules on the streets.” I won’t put my faith in a gun to save me cause I have invested my eternal life to a Saviour who prophecied all of these things to come to pass…good day gentlemen outside the US, and Godspeed
Just a quick thought for the author:
Don’t you think that the huge increase in gun and ammunition purchases might be tied to the fact that many gun owners (or people who are considering becoming gun owners) are greatly concerned that the current government is radically anti-gun and will make it the next best thing to impossible to buy guns. People aren’t buying guns in a hurry because they’re depressed, angry, or scared of the current situation, They’re doing it because they’re afraid that if they wait, they won’t be able to do it later if they need to.
A very interesting article with a very worrying theme. Being British I can’t comment on the whole ethos of owning firearms( you cannot own semi and fully automatic weapons here ), but obviously if criminal elements own guns it’s natural to want one to counter that threat. We have some of the most strict gun laws in the world, but still hardly a week goes by without somebody being gunned down in the street. Clamping down on legal gun sales makes no difference because there will always be a healthy black market. In England you can buy S&W’s,Berettas,AK47s and pretty much anything you like if you know the right people.
The genie’s out of the bottle and it’s too late to put the stopper back.
You hit some good points in the article. Funny thing is that you cannot purchase bullets if you tried. Go online and check wholesale retailers. Some places stopped taking back orders. You may can pick up quality hunting ammo for 15 bucks 20 shots. Who wants to spend that kind of coin for target pratice? There are going to be a million guns floating around with no bullets to fire.
I don’t own a gun to kill people. I own a gun to keep from being killed. I don’t own a gun because I’m paranoid. I own a gun because there are
real threats in the world. I don’t own a gun because I’m evil. I own a gun because I have lived long
enough to see the evil in the world.
I don’t own a gun because I hate the government. I own a gun because I understand the limitations of government.
I don’t own a gun because I’m angry. I own a gun so that I don’t have to spend the rest of my life hating myself for failing to be prepared. I don’t own a gun because I want to shoot someone. I own a gun because
I want to die at a ripe old age in my bed, and not on a sidewalk somewhere tomorrow afternoon.
I don’t own a gun to make me feel like a man. I own a gun because men know how to take care of themselves and the ones they love. I don’t own a gun because I feel inadequate. I own a gun because unarmed and facing three armed thugs, I am inadequate. I don’t own a gun because I love it. I own a gun because I love life and the people who make it meaningful to me.
Police Protection is an oxymoron. Free citizens must protect themselves. Police do not protect you from crime, they usually just investigate the crime after it happens and then call someone in to clean up the mess.
I own a gun. And I know how and when to use it.
I am pro-gun, anti-Obama, and generally anti-republican and anti-democrat.
I agree, its actually amazing there aren’t large scale riots. I think the difference is in America, most people do not like aimless riots. There are many riots in America though, like the Oakland riots, which actually do not register high in America’s conciousness because black riots are so common.
The right to keep and bear arms is a specifically- enumerated-right. Remember those three words. Like air and water, human beings have a right to be able to defend themselves. With firearms, knives, a hoe, etc. Only convicted felons and the mentally incompetent are excluded from this right.
I think the biggest issue today is the “entitlement generation”. People from all over have become expectant that - without working for it - they should get the best that democracy has to offer. And when they don’t get it, they get angry and lash out, sometimes with deadly effect.
One big issue for the common person is fear of getting caught between the uprising of the drug fueled, I-don’t-accept-responsibility-for-my-own -actions types, and the increasingly socialist government that is sooner or later going to use the standing military to keep them selves in power. Joe and Jane Doe are caught in between, and it is up to them, and every other person individually, to defend themselves.
Anyone that thinks the government is responsible for defending you needs to look into the “no duty to protect” laws in force all over the nation.
And for those parents who are raising “entitlement” type children, look in the mirror. There you will find the ultimate cause of what the younger generation has become.
This blog was written by a man who has no concept of American culture or human nature, much less a grasp of journalistic principals.
First of all, he’s basing his anti-gun opinion on two anti-gun sources — NPR and a Washington Post COLUMNIST who is paid to spew vitriol, not report the “news.” Boom Boom, credibility is shot.
Second, Scapegoat much? There is neither logic nor evidence to back up stupid conjecture that Americans are buying guns because of an ailing economy or fear of some economically disadvantaged and violent “other.” That’s sheer racist scapegoating on the part of an anti-gun, anti-American, anti-Civil Liberties, anti-Constitution left wing.
People are buying guns for the simple reason that Obama has installed the most socialistic, big-government, repressive, anti-libertarian government America has ever seen. We fear that our CONSTITUTIONALLY GUARANTEED RIGHT to own a firearm will be stripped from us by our increasingly repressive government.
Seriously, if people were worried about the economy, they would spend money on food and fuel. Guns don’t pay the bills, except for the criminals that would benefit from the stripping of our rights to legally own firearms.
The author of this blog isn’t even a credible debater. At the least, he should present both sides so he could attempt to counter the valid arguments against his position. But in his anti-gun and anti-American glee to portray Americans as violent, fearful and desperate, he doesn’t even mention that both Obama and Clinton have gone on record both before and after the election as supporting FURTHER RESTRICTIONS on gun ownership, this despite the Supreme Court’s validation of private gun ownership rights in 2008.
BobM -
You seem to be missing a crucial point about the use of guns in your brilliantly broad and unsubstantiated statements. Shooting a gun at someone is far easier than beating someone to death with your bare hands.
A decision to end a life with a gun can be made far too easily but to continue to beat the life out of a human being with just your fists requires some perseverance (I imagine!).
I don’t hate guns or gun owners but I dislike the apathy that surrounds gun control.
You demand that we “use some common sense for a change”. Would you care to start the ball rolling?
This is an interesting one. Regarding the gun issue, I have nothing against guns being owned for sporting purposes, but as far as “anti-personnel” weapons (which of course include Smith & Wessons designed to blow the average person’s head off and not to shoot deer) we would all do well to remember what Homer said: “The blade itself incites to violence”. We don’t carry swords any more (at least outside Glasgow) and we shouldn’t carry guns or have them readily available for the same reason.
The magic words in the rest of the article are: “In housing alone, more than $5 trillion has vanished”. Hooray, finally somebody has twigged. The money hasn’t gone anywhere, it wasn’t stolen by naughty bankers. Asset values are not worth the paper they’re written on (and incidentally why has nobody blamed accountants for this mess yet?) until you receive the money in your hot little hands, and anyone lending on the basis of asset values, or borrowing for that matter, would do well to remember it. House prices can go down as well as up. You may not get back the money you invested. House purchase may not be suitable for everyone, etc. etc.
Someone earlier blamed the republicans for all of the hate in america. That is a lot of B.S.! People on both sides have created it and a lot of it stems from greed and jealousy. A lot of these young kids, blacks and whites both have grown up in the last generation where the parents lived off of welfare and exploited the system to get free money and not having to work. The hollywood liberals like Clooney, Jolie, DeNiro,Pitt, Penn,just to name a few of the most liberal, have produced and acted in movies that depict killing with guns as fun and cool and are the biggest hippocrites in the country. They do this and then have the gall to want to ban guns. Their movies should be banned everywhere in america. Things that people knew back in the 40’s, were that yes another country can attack us on our own turf and no, there are no free lunches, you have to earn a living. They had higher moral standards, there were no movies with nudity or indiscriminite killing and torture on tv. The young blacks these days all want to be “gangsta’s” and the young whites think it is cool so they want to be like them.
The only easy way they see to get this lifestyle is through force and intitmidation and they have to steal and deal drugs to finance their own little wars in the US.When you change that way of thinking,then maybe you will start to see a change in gun violence, but until then all law abiding gun owners need to protect their right to own guns and ammo. The democrats intend to take both away from you, they are the ones who are the problem.
for those who hate guns and gun owners, you need to realize that a gun never killed anyone. I have several guns and for 50 years they have sat here in my house, and not one person/human/animal/alien/tree/bush/you name it~ was ever killed by one of my guns.
people kill people, humans kill humans, animals kill other animals, humans kill animals, animals kill humans, animals kill people.
take guns away and people will start killing with knives. take knives away and we will kill each other with sticks, take sticks away and we will kill each other with rocks, take rocks away and we will kill each other with our bare hands.
Face it! It’s in our nature to destroy ourselves, guns or not. A gun is nothing but metal parts, perhaps some plastic or wood.
More people die by cars than guns. Let us ban cars/trucks.
Use some common sense for a change. The human race is and has been killing, conquering and ruling other humans since the day the first human walked this earth.
Until the last human dies nothing will change.
If every human perished today, and next week two more humans were introduced to the planet it would not be long before one would kill the other.
When it comes right down to it, every one of us would kill another human to survive.
guns only make it easier to survive, that’s all. Take em away and I’ll use a knife to survive. Take the knife away and I will use a baseball bat to survive.
take that away and I will use a rock to survive.
Get it?