My local Merchant O’Death reports:
Six working days after Orlando and I feel slightly vindicated in regard to my earlier prediction. After a SLOW start to the week, we are now out of “cheap” ARs. We had eight or nine Ruger AR556s and a couple of 1st Gen S&W M&P-15 Sports all of which are gone as of close of business today. We still have four Daniel Defense rifles of differing models as well as a couple of higher end Colts and a lone LWRC model. Apparently hysteria has a price tag and it is under a grand. We are out of 30-round P-Mags but still have some 20-rounders and a truck load of 40-rounders left. Had a guy come into the shop today in full blown panic mode wanting to buy 30-round mags “before thy are banned again!!!” I informed the gentleman that all we have left are commercial, steel mags. He looked at me like a monkey doing a math problem and then asked if we were getting any more P-Mags in. I replied that I wasn’t 100% certain as there had been a run on them. He then asked how much the steel mags were. I gave him a price of $17.99 and then he asked how much the P-Mags would cost. $15.99 was the reply, $16.99 if he wanted windows. He looked at me like a dog does when it hears a weird sound and then said he would wait for the P-mags. Apparently hysteria has more than one price tag. Got lots of phone calls today asking about our existing stock of ARs. When told that all we had left were the DDs, LWRC and Colts, the response was almost a universally despondent: “Okay, thanks.”
Had lots of calls about lowers as well as parts kits. We still have a good supply of both. Same for ammo. We still have AKs, M-1As and AR-10 platforms on the shelves. Interest in pocket pistols and revolvers have picked up a bit but only just. Same with reloading components. Our distributors haven’t been totally cleaned out but rifles and mags are leaving their warehouses with much haste.
I did notice a large number of phone calls from women asking about ARs today. The rest of the crew commented on this as well. A couple of the calls were from women who were calling for their husbands/boyfriends as evidenced by the fact that I could hear the lazy bastards in the background correcting the female caller when she misspoke. I have no doubt that those dudes will last a long time if things go sideways. (I do wish someone would invent a sarcasm font)
Can’t wait to see what happens next week.
So they got off to a slow start, but things are picking up as Congress starts making “BAN ‘EM!” noises again.