I’m not sure that gun and ammo sales are closely linked.
I also don’t think the relative lack of ammo will stop anyone from buying the gun. They might complain more about the inability to shoot it, but they’ll still buy.
The massive panic buying of guns was triggered by the fear that ARs and handguns were about to be banned after the Newtown killings. I think this panic buying spree was tempered by two factors. First, there is a limit to the number of people who can go out and spend $500 – $5000 on guns at any given time. And once they do spend, they are not likely to spend again within a short period of time.
Secondly, the lack of availability that ensued after the initial panic, combined with the relative lack of success that the gun grabbers have had in instituting full bans, will have more people looking at the situation rationally and choosing not to purchse. The fact of the matter is that there isn’t going to be a nation-wide ban on any one gun or type of gun. It’s extremely questionable weather or not the Federal government even has the power to implement a blanket ban on possession within a single state.
Ammo, on the other hand was and continues to be 100% panic driven with no rational basis for the increased buying.
Nobody at the state or Federal level proposed banning ammunition or reloading components. Nobody proposed banning the amount of ammunition one could possess. It’s simply hording of ammo for no reason and the more the horders gobbled up to pile in their basements, the more desperate people became because there was no ammo. So they horded even more…
Compared to guns, ammo is relatively inexpensive, so more people had the money to go out on panic hording sprees.
Grouse
)
