Fear vs. Safety: Are you safe in your home?
How are you preparing for the pandemic? Most people are stocking up on food, disinfectants, and water. Some are stocking up of bikes and supplies for in home gyms. While others stock up on guns and ammunition, and just like everyone else is in the store on the day the shipments drop it is the same for guns and ammunition. The same way grocery stores are putting limits on bread, milk, and sanitizers; sporting goods stores are having to limit the amount of ammunition being bought because it is hard to keep it on the shelves.
The year of 2020 has brought about a lot of changes one being the major increase in gun and ammunition sales and two being that this is taking place during a COVID pandemic. There was a 309% increase in revenue from Feb. 23 to March 15 and 792% increase in revenue from Feb. 23 to March 31. Though there has also been a decrease in the crime rate since COVID this rise in gun sales was based on fear and it is not healthy to be buying guns and ammunition simply out of fear. Having worked in a position to be signing off on gun sales there are times when customers made remarks about preparing for the apocalypse, taking supplies from those who hoard them, along with countless other derogatory remarks all within the nature of continuously spreading fear. During this time legislation has not passed any laws controlling the sales of gun and ammunition as well as buyback.
The things that have taken place this year have shown us that fear creates panic. The fear caused by the pandemic caused people to buy out supplies and groceries in the stores and in turn created fear for those both with and without an overwhelming amount of supplies leading to the influx in guns and ammunition sales. As people realized that guns and ammunition were becoming harder to come by they began to buy them completely out. The bill that would be beneficial during this time, but has not been passed is the Gun Violence Prevention and Community Safety Act of 2020. Within this act came regulations that would improve the gun sale program. This act requires a license for purchase, raises the buying age from 18 to 21, establishes new background check requirements, restricts assault weapons, allows the ability to remove weapons from the home, makes trafficking a stand-alone criminal defense, increased requirements for licensed gun dealers, and more ensuring the protection of the citizens in a time where sales have climbed so highly.
How do you want to feel in your home during this challenging time. The last thing the world needs is scared citizens running around with guns without proper knowledge and responsibility. Passing the Gun Violence Prevention and Community Safety Act of 2020 would be a start to ensuring a better process for selling guns and ammunition during this time of influx.
Some other restrictions that would be beneficial at this time include the amount of guns and ammunition sales that can be made to one particular customer in a certain amount of time. Being that we are in a shortage one person should not be able to go in and buy out most of a store on every delivery date. Everyone deserves to protect themselves. I also agree that everyone has the right to bear arms, but in a time of fear and panic there needs to be increased restrictions to help prevent the wrong things from falling into the wrong hands. Though the system will never be made completely perfect, it has the potential to keep a lot of people a lot safer when it comes to guns.