There's a Run on Guns at Macy's!!

From The Abstracted Father: "I was at the gun store buying powder for reloading and the place was packed. Everyone is trying to buy handguns before Jan. 20th."

He's right. Multiple news outlets have reported a nationwide surge in gun sales since Obama's election, fed by fears there will be a ban on concealed weapons and assault weapon sales.

Now I support the right to shoot guns. TAE is an avid hunter, and enjoys unloading his weapons into targets during the off-season. Should an intruder break into my home and threaten my family, TAE would be more than willing to unload into the intruder as well. Should this nation get involved in a war so dire it required my services in the military, TAE would bear arms against foreign nations just as willingly.

But has patriotism sunk so low that large numbers of people feel they must protect themselves from the government by stockpiling assault weapons? Assault weapons have no use in hunting; they are inaccurate, heavy, and dangerous. The only purpose for assault weapons is to kill people. If an intruder broke into your home, you could more easily and more effectively stop them with a handgun than with a large assault rifle.
The only possible reason that an American could logically have for buying an assault rifle is they no longer trust their government and are concerned in the near future they will need to violently defend themselves from the U.S. military that is coming to take them to camps.

But I think everyone can relax, for now. Even if Senator Obama (technically he should still be doing his Senatorial duties...you know...the ones he largely ignored for the last 2 years while he campaigned...) bans guns, I believe it will be temporary. Gun ownership is cryptically mentioned in the Bill of Rights and as such falls under the direct jurisdiction of the Supreme Court. Thanks to Bush's conservative appointments of Roberts and Alito, the Supreme Court currently appears to be pro-gun.

So before everyone panics and fills their basements with weapons of human destruction, just ask yourself: why do you want an assault rifle now, when you could have bought one since February 2004, when the previous ban was lifted. You've had 4 good years to buy up any gun you wanted. What is about to change, other than you might have a ban put in place? And did you need assault weapons during the last ban? If you did, why didn't you purchase them before now?