Make Sure To Leave Room For the Canned Food

When it comes to gun-related tragedies such as what happened in Newtown, the NRA and gun manufacturers count on people having extremely short attention spans in order to maintain the status quo.  And luckily for the NRA and gun manufacturers, politicians really are the perfect blend of forgetfulness and cowardice as we hear that gun measures proposed in the wake of the Connecticut massacre are slowly dying because of the noblest of reasons... career politicians are fearful of losing that "Career" status.

Truth of the matter is that not all parts of the country see gun issues the same way.  Connecticut gets hit with an unspeakable gun crime and they go all in on reform, but I'm curious what would happen if these kinds of things happened in a much more 2nd Amendment hardcore red state?  Would Texas really consider the kinds of reforms passed in Connecticut if a suburb of Dallas experienced what Newtown did?  Would those hypothetical Texas parents lament the lack of armed teachers in the school or would they go after the gun ownership process as well?

It's pure navel-gazing (as is, I guess, 99% of the internet), but I wonder because guns illicit weird responses from people.  I stumbled across this article during my daily internet-ing:

Ammo Manufacturers Producing "24 Hours A Day" To Match Demand

This isn't the first time I heard about recent ammo shortages.  And with all the downer talk about the effects the embarrassingly stupid sequester has on our fragile economy, it's refreshing to read this:

Hornady ammunition, makers of some of the most popular self-defense ammo for concealed carry applications, explained it this way: "We are producing as much as we can, much more than last year, which was a lot more than the year before, etc. No one wants to ship more during this time than we do." 

The demand for Hornady's ammo is so great that they've "added presses, lathes, CNC equipment, [and] people and space." They are producing many popular items "24 hours a day" and "several hundred employees work overtime every week" to make as much ammo as possible.

Or this:

Supplies of 9mm, 45 acp, 40 S&W, and .223 are scarce in the marketplace, and where they can be found, they are being snatched up by desperate consumers as they are unloaded off trucks at stores like Wal-Mart & Gander Mountain. 

We've all seen movies where there is some outbreak and society crumbles and there's the scene where someone unloads relief supplies off the back of the truck while desperate hoards try to remain civil despite their desperation.  That scene is actually happening right now with gun ammunition, but here's the part that's batshit nuts:

During panics in the past, gun owners bought up all the ammo they could; during the current panic, even people who don't own guns have been buying ammo for the gun they might buy in the future. At the same time, first-time gun buyers have not only been buying guns but also every bullet for it they can find. 

Just what do these people think will happen?  Not sure what paid ad you'll get in the upper right portion of your webpage should you click on the article link above, but here's a screenshot of what I saw:

Nation-wide Gun Grab Soon?  No, not at all, but a most bizarre Venn Diagram overlap seems to be occurring in the world of guns.  Here are the overlapping subheadings of these circles:

Gun Owner
Possesses Some Disposable Money
Paranoid
Has Some Storage Space To Spare
Gullible To Claims Made By People Trying To Sell You Shit

It's kind of odd, if you really think there is going to be a nationwide gun grab soon (assuming that means the Liberals are coming to take away your guns), why would you dump a lot of money into something that you are about to lose?  Seriously - this is the only time I'm probably ever going to say this - listen to Glenn Beck.  Stockpile gold.  The government isn't going to take it away like they apparently will guns in your paranoid fantasy, and it's really worth something.

We all know that more and more guns are being sold in this country to a smaller and smaller group of people, which means there are people out there stockpiling weapons to some degree.  Which is ironic because the government doesn't really pay that much attention to gun ownership until you stockpile them... so you're apparently super-arming yourself in case the government comes, which they would only do because you are super-arming yourself.

There are some Quixotic parallels to be made here with these hoarding gun owners here in the U.S., except that in Don Quixote, he armed himself so he could go attack the windmill.  Gun owners here arm themselves so they can look through drawn blinds suspiciously at the windmill, and should the windmill come, they are prepared to hold out indefinitely against the windmill siege.  Now don't misread my intentions here, I'm not calling for you weapon hoarders to Nut Up™ and take the fight to the windmill.  Like most reasonable people, I sincerely want you to realize you're trying to stare down a windmill like a crazy person and come back to rational society.

Sadly, for some in this group, I feel that's never going to happen because I think they secretly hope the Government does come for their guns so that they get their chance at the armed standoff.  I feel like some of these people glorify in their heads the image of them in a firefight defending their second amendment rights.  Or if not that, they secretly hope someone breaks into their home and gives them the opportunity to kill a fellow human being...

I think I'm starting to see why these folks are so against background checks that so many others are for. These folks are fucking crazy and might not pass some of these checks.