ON TEVLIN Star Tribune
December 7, 2008
http://www.startribune.com/mobile/?aid=35690579
The gun show at the Stillwater Armory on Thanksgiving weekend featured an unlikely salesman. A flier taped to the door featured a stern-looking picture of the president-elect, with the words: ”Barack Obama: Enemy of your gun rights.”
While the gun show had plenty of competition from retailers starting their Christmas sales, business was brisk as people streamed in and bought up shotguns, hunting knives and at least a few semiautomatic rifles — the gun most gun-rights advocates think an Obama presidency might ban.
“It’s the Obama effect,” said Joel Rosenberg, a gun law expert who teaches a gun course for people who want permits to carry handguns. He’s teaching one this month and it’s full, for the first time all year, even though the trend for renewals of carry permits has been down in Minnesota.
“Obama is the first president or presidential candidate who has been on the board of an antigun group [the Joyce Foundation],” said Rosenberg. “Folks are talking as if this Jan. 20 is the day that changes everything. He has said he favors ‘common sense’ laws, and for a lot of gun people, that’s not very good.”
One of those is Glenn, owner of Glennko Industries, who doesn’t want his last name used.
Glenn had a booth at the Stillwater show, a table lined with Egyptian and Russian AK-47s. Most of the firearms on the table are semiautomatic and custom-built by Glenn, a licensed dealer.
“I fully expect to be out of business soon,” he said. “Right now my objective is to get my business loan paid down. If I can get out of this business without bankruptcy, that’s about the best I can expect.”
Fear or reality?
Gun sales are volatile, often rising this time of the year for hunting season and Christmas, so it’s difficult to pin the buying on one factor, experts warn. What’s more, buyers don’t have to register guns in Minnesota, so statistics documenting an upswing in sales are not available.
But dealers agree that they are seeing greater interest since the election from prospective buyers.
Discussion of gun laws were largely absent from presidential debates, something that scares Glenn.
“The reason there was a lack of talk about the Second Amendment during the campaign is because it’s one of the first things he’s [Obama] going to do,” Glenn said.
The website for Obama’s transition includes his position on dozens of issues, but does not mention guns or gun control. The closest the website gets is on the topic of “Sportsmen”:
“Barack Obama and Joe Biden recognize that we must forge a broad coalition if we are to address the great conservation challenges we face. America’s hunters and anglers are a key constituency that must take an active role and have a powerful voice in this coalition,” the website says.
Before the election, Obama sought to allay fears he was out to get those sportsmen, even sending a flier to Minnesota homes saying “Obama will protect our gun rights.”
The fliers posted at the gun show list a number of policies Obama expressed support for in the past, including bills that banned certain types of rifles, higher taxes on ammunition and allowing lawsuits against the firearms industry. Despite heavy opposition from gun groups, Obama won states with high gun ownership.
Sue Fust, executive director of Citizens for a Safer Minnesota, says groups such as the National Rifle Association are exaggerating Obama’s antigun position to draw members and sell guns.
“The anti-Obama vitriol has been a fear-mongering tactic that encourages some very fringe folks who are paranoid and convinced that the United States government will really need to be overthrown one day by citizens with guns,” Fust said. “This helps to sell firearms. It is therefore important for those selling guns who want to make money to either try to create new markets or increase sales to existing gun owners.”
Though his bread is buttered in the gun trade, Rosenberg isn’t as spooked by an Obama presidency as his “gun friends,” and he recommends a measured response by his clients.
Considering all the problems the country faces, “you have to wonder how high a priority [guns] will be,” Rosenberg said. “It’s going to cost millions of dollars” to institute new gun laws, “and how much political capital is he willing to spend right away? I’m telling people who ask, ‘Don’t do anything you wouldn’t do anyway,'” he said. “If you were already thinking of getting a carry permit or … a semiautomatic, well, maybe go ahead and do it.”
Hype boosts gun prices
So if there is a spike in the number of guns being bought, is it only because of Obama, or also fears of economic collapse?
“I talk to sober people, so I don’t hear many who think the black helicopters are coming to their door,” Rosenberg said. “But a fair number believe that in bad economic times, crime goes up some” and they want protection. “But the fringe concerns are inflated, in my opinion.”
That doesn’t mean the hype hasn’t spiked prices. “Just look at the junky AK-47 clones, which were $500 and now going for $900,” he said.
As a part-time business, Erik Srigley makes custom holsters, some of which were on display in Stillwater last week. He said he has never been busier. Some of the uptick he attributes to fears about Obama, but he also hears people say they expect the poor economy to lead to more crime.
Across the room, another dealer who would identify himself only as Ken was selling a wide range of firearms, including a few of the ones Rosenberg jokingly calls “the evil black gun.”
“So far, Obama has been a better gun salesman than [President] Bill Clinton,” the dealer said. “The runup started a couple of months before the election, when people began to realize Obama might win handily. Most retailers have increased prices about 20 percent.”
When Ken went to his first show after the election in Hastings, sales were “two to three times” normal. Then, a few weeks ago in Faribault, “they were at least double,” he said. “But this won’t last forever.”
Jon Tevlin • 612-673-1702
Something about the “right to keep and bear arms”
