Sales of guns, ammo still high

And so it goes...The situation in Oregon is the same, no ammo.

Tulsa World: Sales of guns, ammo still high

Four months after the election of President Barack Obama, firearms and ammunition sales in Tulsa remain at a fever pitch.

Popular self-protection ammunition is often sold out at local stores, weapons are flying off shelves and the state reports an 87 percent increase in concealed carry permit applications for February 2009 over February 2008.

"People are hoarding. They're creating a shortage," Jim Prall at Sports World on 41st Street said of ammunition sales. "We've sold more ammunition in the last three months than we sold last year."

Gun sales spiked in November with the election of Barack Obama and Democrats adding to their majority in Congress. But local gun dealers say the spike is turning into a steady climb with political worries about gun rights as well as worries about the economy and potential for increased crime.

Prall said his store planned ahead for the increase, having seen a similar spike
after Bill Clinton was elected, but the previous jump in sales pales in comparison to what's happening now.

"Most we're selling now we got back in September, but we bought pallets then where normally we wouldn't have ordered that much."

The surprise sales come with .380 caliber semi- automatic pistols. A relatively small self-protection weapon, it's not one that people typically fire in great quantity at the firing range, Prall said. Yet, the ammunition is now hard to find. "Nobody would have predicted that," he said.

"What's happened is everybody is afraid because the Democrats are anti-gun," said David Stone, president of Dong's Guns and Ammo on East Admiral Place.