Change already has come to gun stores

John Thompson, manager of Fisherman’s Marine and Outdoor in Delta Park, shows a handgun to Rick Valkama of Vancouver Thursday afternoon. Thompson says gun sales have increased since last week’s election. (Steven Lane/The Columbian)

Gun owners aren’t waiting to see what change President-elect Barack Obama will bring to Washington, D.C., when he becomes the nation’s 44th president on Jan. 20.

Fearful that an Obama administration and a Democrat-controlled Congress will mean tighter firearms restrictions, gun buyers are stocking up on handguns, rifles, ammunition and accessories.

“I’m sold out in many items, and restocking is the hard part,” said Jake Hosman, whose family owns C&C Guns Sales in east Vancouver. “There’s no beating around the bush. Everyone is worried about the Clinton (military-style) gun ban coming back, so they are picking them up as quickly as they can.”

Hosman said many gun stores report sales three or four times higher than average, but he declined to say how much his business has surged.

“We’re doing very well,” he said, adding that the uptick started in October, before the Nov. 4 election.

Terry Lee, owner of LL Guns in Dollars Corner, said he, too, has seen an increase in sales since the election, but he won’t have specific numbers until the end of the month.

“I know it’s up a good 10 or 15 percent,” he said.

He dismissed reports of some gun stores seeing a tenfold jump in sales as “hogwash” because they would quickly run out of guns to sell.

Lee said his customers tell him why they are buying now, “but that’s between me and them.”

“Guns are my business,” he added, “but I am a lot less worried about that than Supreme Court nominations.”

Buyers seem to be particularly fearful that military-style weapons will no longer be available.

Obama has said he supports Second Amendment rights, but he also favors reinstating a ban on certain semiautomatic military rifles, often called assault weapons.

In 1994, then President Bill Clinton signed legislation prohibiting their sale. The ban lasted for 10 years and wasn’t renewed prior to its expiration in 2004.

“The reality of gun ownership may be different for hunters in rural Ohio than they are for those plagued by gang violence in Cleveland,” Obama said during his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention. “But don’t tell me we can’t uphold the Second Amendment while keeping AK-47s out of the hands of criminals.”

Hosman said he recently has seen a surge of demand for AR-15 rifles, but it’s not just gun enthusiasts who are stocking up as concerns about crime and meth addiction grow.

“I’ve had people with Obama stickers and McCain stickers come in wanting to buy home defense weapons,” he said.

Dan Giles, a retired Clark County gunsmith who stays in touch with gun sellers, said he talked to one who reported selling 28 M-16s last Saturday alone.

Gun owners have reason to fear increased regulation under an Obama administration, Giles said.

“There’s no worry about that,” he said. “It’s going to happen. Absolutely.”

Dan Grogan, who lives in Salmon Creek, is president and owner of Fisherman’s Marine and Outdoor, which has stores in Delta Park and Oregon City. Grogan believes there could be some tightening of gun regulations when Obama succeeds George W. Bush.

“Two very different administrations, to say the least,” he said.

Like other retailers, Grogan is seeing a surge in gun sales. His two stores rang up 80 percent of what they would typically sell during November, in just the first 10 days of this month.

“Other than that, retail business is not good,” Grogan said.

Fisherman’s Marine and Outdoor is a sporting goods store and doesn’t focus solely on guns. Some Portland stores that sell only guns are seeing a bigger increase in business, he said.

There have been scattered reports that people are buying guns because they fear a breakdown of civilization and ensuing anarchy, but gun sellers report hearing little, if any, that from their customers.

“Most of the people we deal with are conservative hunters,” Grogan said. “I haven’t heard anything like that whatsoever.”

Hosman said he personally doesn’t see the need for people to stock up now because tighter gun restrictions would take months, if not a year, to enact through Congress.

“It’s still a panic, no matter how you look at it,” he said. “You are still looking at people coming out and trying to grab everything they can.”

Jeffrey Mize: 360-735-4542 or jeff.mize@columbian.com