US virus coronavirus gun sales
David Liu, right, owner of a gun store, takes an order from a customer in Arcadia, Calif. (AP Photo/Ringo H.W. Chiu)

[Gun store owner David] Liu lived through the 1992 Los Angeles riots, triggered by the acquittal of police officers charged in the brutal beating of Rodney King.

As parts of the city burned, Asian-American communities such as the one in Koreatown had to fend for themselves. For the first three days of looting, the police did not come to Koreatown and residents turned away looters with guns and baseball bats. When the week-long riots were over, about half the US$1 billion in damage had been sustained by Korean-American businesses.

“All these people are out of work, and what are people running out of food and money going to do? It’s going to be scary,” he says.

Gun control advocacy groups might argue more widespread gun ownership will not make the country safer and that, if anything, firearms in the home lead to more murders, suicides and accidental shootings. Liu does not agree.

The 54-year-old taught his three daughters, aged 20 to 28, to shoot “as soon as they were ready to learn”, and urges them to sleep with a loaded gun close to hand.

– Alison de Souza in Asian-Americans are stocking up on guns to protect themselves during coronavirus pandemic

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42 COMMENTS

  1. Asian-Americans are one of the most easily manipulated minorities in American politics. Imagine escaping a dictatorial hell-hole to a free land, and then readily campaign for the same big brother nanny state they just had to escape from?

  2. At my local gun store and smith all the pistols are gone. All defensive shotguns are gone and all modern sporting rifles as well. Still some expensive revolvers and bolt action rifles but even those are thinned out. Ammo according to the owner is also flying out the door and 223, 9, 40 and 45 all sold out.
    Lots of newbies buying everything in sight.
    This was a very well stocked little shop. Owner probably made more money in a week than all of last year would be my guess. I say good for him.

    • This morning’s news…our Los Angeles Sheriff Villanueva just announced he’s closing all gun shops in the county due to his concern that “we have all these new gun buyers who have never shot a gun before and are becoming a danger”. This man is exactly why your vote matters in EVERY election – conservative voters felt like their votes didn’t really matter much in uber-liberal CA, so for the first time in a full century, a Democrat Sheriff (barely) won over an incumbent Republican Sheriff in Nov 2018. What we got was a Sheriff who immediately declared L.A. County a “Sanctuary County” (he doesn’t have the power to do that), and now in the midst of this crisis he’s ordering all gun shops closed (he certainly doesn’t have the constitutional power to do that!).

      And where is Mayor Garcetti in all of this? I haven’t seen or heard from him since last week.

      I certainly hope everyone remembers the Democrats’ actions when the November elections arrive.

      https://www.foxnews.com/us/coronavirus-gun-store-california-sheriff-not-essential-closure

      • Nitpicky correction, Haz– The Sheriff *does* have the power to do that, what he doesn’t have is the authority.

      • Makes me wonder how the counties surrounding LA (Ventura, Kern, Riverside, Orange) are doing that provide CCW licences.

  3. Started a new job yesterday building medical devices and heard some guys talking about the lgs down the road from my house. They said the store is starting to divide boxes and place them into bags and selling them like that.

    • Congrats on the new job. What will you be building? I’ve been working on medical equipment for over 30 years, and worked for a couple of manufacturers.

      • Thanks I’m incredibly lucky to be working I’m building oxygen concentrators. They handed out letters for us I guess it’s a pass to get to work if things here in Pa go south. It’s a pretty easy job I built truck bodies for 6 years before joining the Boilermakers so I can run wires and air lines no problem. The demand was 8G now they want us to make 50g. I just wish they enforced ppe like respirators and stuff.

  4. California sheriff says gun stores are not essential business and must close; don’t worry they will protect you.
    Ha! obviously, people don’t believe that.

  5. If this shutdown goes on longer then a month or if the supply chain is compromised at the source sooner all bets are off as to what the millions of concrete dwellers will do.

    “Keep one’s powder dry.”

    • This. This is what I keep telling my wife, who up until last week turned a tolerant but critical eye to my paranoid behaviors – insisting we buy a new case of TP when we there was an entire full case in the basement, for instance.

      Went shopping last week – Milk, bread, eggs, TP, and paper towels for some reason were gone. The most perishable foods, and the bulkiest, cheapest, least-necessary luxury paper products. THAT is what people buy up.

      Went shopping this week, and the stores have converted a whole aisle to paper goods. More of the truck is bulky paper goods, so there’s less actual goods. Frozen pizzas, prepared meats are gone, even though there’s a huge surplus of fresh meats, store-made pizzas. Rice is gone, but there’s all the flour. Canned aisle is looking thin – especially the tomato sauces for some reason. I suspect it’s less that its in demand and more that it’s been dropped from the truck to make room for more TP.

      This is the beginning of a shortage situation, and I think it’s just starting to dawn on people.

      And this is without a major climate event, or terrorist act, or civil war, driver strike – this is just the demand side of the equation gone mad. Had this been a REAL emergency, people in the cities would already be eating their pets. As it is, we’re straining the supply chain and twisting it into knots over PAPER TOWELS, of all things.

      • Tell me about. People don’t know what to buy. No water? Check the juice aisle, totally stocked. All the milk was gone (I needed it for my infant) but soy milk was fully stocked. Milk lasts like 10 days, soy milk lasts 3-5 months and many brands don’t even need to be refrigerated!

      • I work at a Kroger. Our entire dry load (non-refrigerated/Perishable items) was 12 pallets. 4 were paper goods, 1 was per food/items, remaining 7 were actual food. It was gone completely in an hour. 200-400 people are lined up outside the door before open every day. Local news keeps saying “don’t panic buy, the warehouses are full, there’s plenty”, yet we’re not getting even 10% of what we’re ordering.

        Something is seriously wrong.

        • Same downunder. Trucks are arriving but not much on them. I haven’t seen stores this empty since the transport union strikes of the 1970s.

          Somewhere the supply chain is breaking down under the strain.

  6. I am not “waiting for hours in line” to buy guns and ammunition. I was forward-thinking enough to start stocking a little bit each week/month as funds allowed

  7. My daughter, age 21, is Korean. She likes to read/hear stories of how Koreans in the country are arming and preparing to protect themselves.

    I have not been successful in convincing her to carry anything more than mace and an alarm, but am hoping stories such as this will move her further along.

  9. I have never been as well prepared gun & ammo wise as NOW. It WILL get worse around here-southern Cook County,ILL. If you’re a newbie you waited too long…

  10. Wait times for background checks in Colorado are up to 5-7 days now. Slim pickings at the counters unless you want to shell out at least $600 for a pistol.

    • Guy at the gun counter at Big R told me there are 13K+ waiting on background checks. Yesterday he told me folks were waiting 10 days. Tell me again how a 10 day background check is not an infringement…..

      • Saturday, LGS in Springs showed me the que, there was 8K+, he had guys in there from the week prior. It’s pushing almost 14 days now, from my understanding. Now imagine they had another 10 day waiting period on top of that. That 10 day clock doesn’t start until you’ve cleared the check. People in CA are pushing 30 day wait times for a goddamn handgun.

        This entire system of background checks, purchases, and regulations are going to get people killed at some point. I understand people should’ve already done this, but it’s irrelevant when people start dying because of, yet again, government failure and bureaucracy.

        • it aint a failure, most of the government does not want you to be able to defend yourself and exercise your Rights – government wants to control you

      • I like the gist of the commercial, but note that the woman opened fire before the perp ever opened the door.

        From a legal standpoint, she should have given a loud verbal warning to leave, then waited until the perp forcibly entered (broke the door) and was physically inside the home. THEN she’d be in an airtight legal position to open fire.

        I know it sounds like I’m being a killjoy, but you’d better believe that everyone will be thinking about the legal details the moment after you pull the trigger.

      • The other problem is the automatic weapon.. better commercial would have been wait for him to enter, then dismember him with a 12 gauge…

        • And the way she holds the weapon (firing in auto mode) at the hip a-la ’80s “Commando” style. Not up in the shoulder pocket.

  12. I also lived through the 1992 Rodney King riots in LA. Long story made short, the pistol I had in my truck saved my life the day the riots broke out. So, yeah, I’m a big believer in firearms for self-protection. I can only smile and shake my head about those that don’t get it. And the newbies jumping in now… likely a day late and a dollar short. I just hope they stick with it after this crisis passes.

    • Possibly in a few months, you will be able to pick up “Like New In Box” firearms in private sales at a pretty good discount.

  13. I’m sure that some of my acquaintances thought that I was a little bit of a kook to be loading up on guns and ammo the way I have been for the last decade.

    Who’s the kook now, bitchez?

  14. …… Bolshevik demoncrap: why do you need a gun, you can’t shoot the china flu.
    Civilized society is a thin veneer, currently hanging by a thread; according to my doomsday boogaloo clock we are 2 minutes
    To midnight.
    You want to see what happens to unarmed people in SHTF?
    look up Reginald Denny (92 L.A. riots)
    Then look up what happens when you’re armed. “Roof Koreans”.

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