USA Today and The Trace got together to publish an article that is just the wingiest thing you will read today.
Gun shops flouted state closure orders in April as industry notched another big month
Yes, yes they did.
Gun stores in several states have defied orders to close their doors as the coronavirus pandemic drives historic demand for firearms, according to background check data maintained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and interviews with shop owners.
Governors of five states – Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, New York, and Washington – ordered gun dealers to close in April under statewide stay-at-home directives. FBI data from April shows that dealers in those states still initiated tens of thousands of gun background checks. In Washington state alone, where gun shops were shuttered by a March 25 stay-at-home order, 42,000 checks were initiated in April.
I’m so sorry that this is happening to the antis. Damned small businesses not abiding by job-crushing, income destroying, probably unconstitutional, mandated closures to sell to consumers what they want in this time of crisis.
During April, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System processed 2.9 million checks, making it the fourth highest month on record, dating back to 1998. The Trace compared the number of background checks for handguns, long guns, and transactions involving both types of gun with the same figures for 2019.
In some of the states where stores were ordered closed, dealers conducted more checks in April than during the same month in 2019. In Washington state, for instance, checks increased 45% over April 2019; in New Mexico, they increased 15%.
This is what you get for fomenting a national crisis in which politicians tell police not to arrest people and criminals are let out of prisons and jails. People will seek the means to protect themselves.
The two states that didn’t register any year-over-year increase in firearm background checks were New York and Massachusetts. In New York, the number of checks hovered just below normal levels. In Massachusetts, background checks saw a significant year-over-year decrease, falling 66%.
This is not a surprise to me. I’m sure if Cuomo could have found a way to use the Coronavirus to start confiscating guns, he would have.
Store owners offered a litany of reasons they are violating the orders. Some considered them a breach of their Second Amendment rights.
It’s almost like people who sell guns for a living believe in freedom. This is why they hate gun owners, we’re less likely to bend at the knee to their tyrannical machinations.
Some felt emboldened by a March 28 revision to Department of Homeland Security guidance that deemed the gun industry an essential business during the pandemic. The DHS guidance, which is nonbinding, was heavily pushed by the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the industry trade group.
This is just whining.
In each of the five states where gun stores were deemed nonessential, The Trace contacted retailers to inquire whether they were open. In Michigan, 15 of 20 stores said that they were open to walk-in customers. The remaining five did not answer their phones. In Washington, all 10 dealers contacted were also selling guns, but some emphasized that they required customers to schedule appointments to ensure social distancing.
In New Mexico, 9 out of 10 dealers contacted were open throughout April; in New York, four out of 10 stores contacted said the same. The remaining stores in both states did not answer calls.
Again, I don’t find this surprising.
Shawn Brancheau, who runs Guns Galore in Fenton, Michigan, said that he considers his store an essential business even though Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has said the opposite.
“Home defense needs to be a consideration of the governor at a time like this,” he said, adding that he felt justified staying open because of the Department of Homeland Security’s March guidance. He questioned the constitutionality of any order that would require gun stores to close and said local police had already been in his store to shop and took no action.
“Either there is no Second Amendment or you have the right to bear arms,” Brancheau said.
This, all of this, all the way. He is right. Also, Governor Gretchen Wilson is a tyrant who didn’t let you buy paint because of the virus.
Other store owners said their livelihoods depend upon keeping their doors open. Chris Burnett, who operates Kokopelli Pawn and Gun in Aztec, New Mexico, opened his shop just before the coronavirus reached the U.S. He says the New Mexico State Police have visited three times in the past month, instructing him to close his store. On the third visit, troopers fined him $100 and warned him that continued noncompliance could result in a six-month jail sentence.
Still, he stayed open. “I just threw everything into my business,” he said. “I have two little girls at home to feed.”
Precisely. This is a man with inventory on the shelves and storefront rent to pay. Unemployment isn’t going to cut it to feed his kids, I know that for sure, and it sure isn’t going to keep his business in the black. Especially when guns are flying off the shelves.
Who the fuck are the governor and state police to tell a man “I’m going to destroy you legally owned and licensed business, bankrupt your family, and starve your children.” That is not a power any level of our government should have.
Ryan Blake, who runs High Plains Gun Shop six hours east of Burnett’s store, in Clovis, New Mexico, said his store had been approved to stay open by local authorities.
“We’re essentially a department of an essential business since we’re located in a hardware store,” he said. “So we’ve fallen under a gray area.”
Didn’t I say this a while back? Gun stores should sell enough food, bleach, and prepper supplies to skirt any “essential retailer” law.
Likewise, Paul Smith, who runs S&S Gun Sales in Auburn, New York, said he found a loophole in Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s order.
“We were not originally on the list of essential businesses, but being a single proprietor gun store owner, I realized I could be open when I choose to,” he said.
Damn gun industry, always finding loopholes to keep our Moral Superiors™ on the Left from shutting them down.
According to records obtained from the Washington Military Department, which receives complaints about compliance in the state, several gun stores also have continued to operate after allegations of noncompliance.
One, Lynnwood Guns and Ammunition, was the subject of more than 20 complaints in the state’s database, all of which alleged large crowds and a lack of enforcement of social distancing requirements. One complainant alleged that they had confronted the store’s proprietor and shown her that gun stores are not essential per the governor’s order. “She asked me to leave,” the complaint reads.
A representative from Lynnwood Guns and Ammunition declined to comment.
That only comment should be “that Karen can get fucked.”
The National Rifle Association referred questions to the National Shooting Sports Foundation. There, general counsel Larry Keane said it was “not surprising” that gun sales did not suffer in states where firearms dealers were restricted or prohibited from operating during the health emergency.
Meanwhile, the NRA has vigorously condemned states that ordered gun retailers to shutter and filed lawsuits against governors in New Mexico and New York. Massachusetts and Michigan also face lawsuits over their orders.
Yep. A bat cough isn’t a reason to suspend the Bill of Rights. I suspect many groups will sue every level of government when this is over.
Christian Heyne, the vice president of policy for the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, called gun stores’ disobedience deeply concerning.
Of course he does.
The United States relies on gun stores, as federally licensed businesses, to follow state and federal guidelines to ensure the safety of communities across the country, he said, “so it is incredibly alarming to think that there are a number of gun dealers that are essentially going rogue.”
Didn’t the DHS issue guidelines that say gun stores are essential? I guess following federal guidelines in the face of state-level tyranny is going rogue.
“Why can’t those good citizens stop hiding Jews in their attics” stated a representative of the Brady Center.
As states phase in their reopening plans, the situation for gun sales is rapidly changing. On May 1, New Mexico’s governor said gun stores could reopen on an appointment-only basis. On May 7, a federal judge in Massachusetts ruled that the state’s shutdown of gun stores was unconstitutional. Stores there officially reopened for business on May 9.
Good.
This article is just so, so salty, and it’s wonderful. Like McDonald’s french fries.
Forty-five states let gun stores stay open in one capacity or another. So did the Federal Government. A few states tried to curb it and in most of them, gun store owners figured out how to stay open.
The antis and the Left cannot stand to watch businesses reopen or remain open in general, and that guns stored are doing that is just so much worse for them.
The best part about this is that for all their whining and winging there was nothing they could do, and all of their policies and rhetoric drove gun sales.
The tears of unfathomable sadness. Delicious.
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