GUNS and AMMO. SCARE

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Gun and ammunition sales are hot

Start with a president who concerns gun-rights advocates and throw in a pending state bill that would require records be kept for handgun ammunition sales, and it's easy to understand why gun shops are doing a brisk business.

"Yes, we are benefiting because of an individual I didn't vote for, nor did anybody I know vote for. It is kind of ironic, isn't it?" Rich Howell, general manager of Olde West Gun & Loan, said of President Barack Obama's impact on his business.

Guns and ammunition sales at Howell's shop in Redding jumped about 50 percent in the first three months of 2009 compared with 2008.

The fevered sale pace has cooled. But business could pick up again as Assembly Bill 962, a bill that directs all California handgun ammunition vendors to keep records of ammunition sales and make them available to law enforcement, moves through the Legislature.

Authored by Assemblyman Kevin de Leon, D-Los Angeles, the bill also would require all handgun ammunition sales to be conducted face-to-face and vendors to be licensed by the Department of Justice.

The Assembly approved the bill 42-31 on June 3. It's moved to the Senate Public Safety Committee for a hearing later this summer.

"I'm not saying AB 962 and some other aggregate bills simmering in Sacramento don't put fuel to the fire. They do to a certain extent," Howell said. "But on the other hand, we have seen a tremendous increase in ammunition sales and gun sales since after the election, and really after the first of the year it took off."

The state reported that 9,512 guns were sold in Shasta County in 2008, a 3.3 percent increase from the 9,211 that were sold in 2007.

There were 425,244 guns sold in California in 2008, up from 370,628 in 2007, state statistics show.

http://www.redding.com/news/2009/jun/18/gun-and-ammunition-sales-are-hot/