“The number of people in Colorado applying for background checks to purchase firearms has surged in the aftermath of the movie theater shootings in Aurora,” Reuters reports. “In the three days after the rampage, 2,887 people were approved for gun buys, compared with 2,012 the weekend before, a 43.5 percent increase, according to data supplied by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation.” After last year’s Arizona spree killing, Bloomberg reported that handgun sales in Arizona spiked 60 percent on the Monday after the shooting (year-on-year comparison). What does that tell you?

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46 COMMENTS

  1. Somehow, I don’t think most of them just dropped out of their neuroscience programs after botching their preliminary exams.

    http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/13970227-452/outrage-over-guns-is-irrational.html

    “But outrage is no substitute for rational argument,” as the article says – or for doing the only thing you can to police your community. These people get that if you cannot find the bad guys beforehand, you had better have a better backup plan.

  2. i wonder how many of these people are first time gun buyers. i tell people that even if you don’t like guns every family should have one.

  3. It tells me that they either can’t read, or are ignoring the ‘no guns allowed’ signs. I prefer to favor the latter. If it’s concealed, how will they know?

    • This doesn’t tell us anything about establishment gun ban compliance, or boycotts of such places. In any case, I wouldn’t rat out a friend who I knew to be a straight shooter (at least in the metaphorical sense), unless they were doing something obviously unsafe (but then I would hope everybody would do that to protect their friends from overeagerness).

  4. Love how the report came from the CBI. The ATF now knows about all of these people. When confiscation comes around then all of these registered firearms could turn into a liability. Registration begets confiscation.

  5. It takes a horrible incident such as the theater mass killing to shock some people into reality. It looks like some of those people realized that law enforcement does not equal personal security. On the other hand a firearm does equal some level of personal security.

    For anyone who disputes my last statement, please tell me why the scumbag (I will not state the criminal’s name and provide incentive to future psychos) didn’t go to a shooting range or police station to carry out his rampage?

  6. Now that the NRA has made sure that every halfwit in the country owns an assault rifle, they want to sell us the solution that more nitwits need to own guns.   And I don’t know what else; land-mines, I suppose.  

    And anyone who tries to take away your land mines is desecrating the freedoms that you hold so dear.  

    • The Bill of Rights says the right to keep and bear arms won’t be infringed and yet every state in the union regulates weapons down to the pocket knife. You’re talking about landmines…fcuk your landmines. The police can put you in jail for carrying a damn knife!

    • Sounds more like ‘low I.Q. Dave’ if you ask me. The NRA has no dog in the fight to sell guns. They are there to protect the right to have them. What part of ‘shall not be infringed’ don’t you get?

      • jwm: I have attempted to educate well over a dozen people on that distinction in the past week. If the lesson takes in a third of those cases, I’ll be satisfied with my performance.

      • He must be one of those firearm “experts” who had to learn the term “handgun” because they couldn’t tell the difference between a pistol and a revolver.

        • Huh? Isn’t a revolver also a pistol? I thought a pistol was pretty much anything that was fired with one hand in the ordinary course – going back to muzzle-loaded single shots?

        • From the Mirriam-Webster on line —-

          PISTOL
          1: a handgun whose chamber is integral with the barrel; broadly: handgun

          REVOLVER
          2: a handgun with a cylinder of several chambers brought successively into line with the barrel and discharged with the same hammer

          Then we have the “pepperbox revolver”, which is a bunch of pistol barrels which revolve. To put the icing on the cake, look up the Sharp’s Derringer and the Mossberg Brownie. Nothing revolves, except the firing pin.

      • Because Dave uses the liberal terminology, where “assault rifle” means “scary looking rifle”.

    • I keep waiting for this new troll to have some truly nutbag and incoherent things to say like mikey to make him fun, but it’s not happening. All we get is reiterated buzz talk, straw man arguments, and childish pouting. These are the signs of your average everyday tool, not a true troll like mikey.

      We want entertainment out of our trolls, Low Rent Troll. Dance, monkey!

    • I have a TON of landmines in my backyard.. My dog lays them out everyday.. I have a solution to your problem though… move to a country that does not allow citizens to own guns. Then you can sleep at night.

    • Is there a special kind of land mine for tr0lls? ‘Cause if there is, I want one. Or several.

  7. Robert, as you know, I live in Canada where our gun laws are definitely more restrictive than your gun laws. I can live with our laws, but I would absolutely arm-up and know how to use the weapon very well if I lived in the States because the risk situation warrants it. This is a when-in- Rome scenario with firearms.

  8. It tells me that there are several overlapping things happening:

    1) Some of the people are scared, and may be over reacting to an event with a very small probability of happening again. Although fear is an excellent motivator. You did not print the portion of the story telling how Pistol Instructors are overwhelmed with requests and all the classes are booked solid for the next month.

    2) Some of the people are smart and finally figured out that your safety is only in your hands because the police cannot be everywhere. They have one at home, time to find a nice carry along. Self preservation, good motivator!

    3) Some of the people smell the cheap cologne of the gun grabbers coming and getting what they want before the big elections and the gun grabbers come to town. A different fear, but still a motivator.

    4) Some of the people finally decided they needed a Bersa Thunder, Or P238 or LCR9 or something small for the movies. Its mouse gun time!

    5) Its Colorado, and hunting season is around the corner — just saying even in CT there is a late July/August rush for hunting and archery classes are already pretty booked.

    What would be great to know is if this happened around the country or if this is just a localized event. Meaning, people panic when its close to home but otherwise cannot see it happening to them until it is too late. If we had the numbers around the country for the same time period that would be an excellent stat to see.

    The more the better I say.

    • Hey, Pascal, fellow Nutmegger here. I must admit I thought we would see a run on guns and ammo, but when I went to Cabellas to pick up some .223 for my Saiga on Monday (I buy the Herter’s stuff a couple of boxes at a time cause I’m poor), it did not seem as there was any less ammo. I did not check out the guns for the same reasons an alcoholic should stay away from the bar, but from what I could observe from afar there were pistols and revolvers in the cases and long guns on the racks.

      I did overhear a conversation where one Fudd asked another if it was OK to buy .223, which caused me to shake my head a bit.

      Only thing that struck me odd was the cashier inquired if my .223 was for a long gun or pistol. I said long gun, obviously, as no .223 pistols allowed. Maybe she was evincing a modicum of interest in the product purveyed by her employer, but beyond the cursory check for wrinkles and gray hair to determine if an ID check is required, it was the first time I heard that question when purchasing ammo.

      • WhilemyCZgentlyweeps: Only thing that struck me odd was the cashier inquired if my .223 was for a long gun or pistol.

        Several states have a law that prohibits the sale of handgun ammunition to certain ages (in FL I think it’s under 21), but rifle ammuntion is OK as long as they’re over 18. I was asked that at Wal-Mart a couple weeks ago when buying .22LR. She may have asked simply because the computer told her to.

    • Ha, you read my mind! I watched some videos by the late Paul Gomez, recently, including one emphasizing capacity over caliber, that kicked some gears over in my mind. I was already interested in snub-nose and ultra-thin CC semi models, but days ago I found out about the Bersa Thunder .380 CC. It’s a good looking pistol, but its important features to me seem to be:

      – Less likely to snag than many other systems
      – Higher capacity than say the XDs or the Chiappa Rhino
      – Very compact
      – Classic PPK-style design with some updated controls

      It’s not exotic at all but what do I care? I’d rather have a reliable system with plenty of spares available, and the .380 should be able to intervene when necessary without undue possibility of overpenetration or collateral damage, and if the bad guy can be psychologically stopped, that’s fine too. Not looking for a pistol to “blow your head clean off.” The only problem I see with it is that the ammo isn’t amongst the most common types in the US, in terms of use by organizations, but not a problem unless you are a LEO or the like that shouldn’t be a huge problem. I read that the .380 is very common in South America.

  9. After the AZ shooting spree background checks jumped 60%.
    After the CO shooting spree background checks jumped 43%.
    Here comes the Brady Bunch to claim that less Americans are now resorting to gun massacres with feeling a need to buy guns.

  10. I’m more interested in how many of these new gun owners will actually stand up for the right when push comes to shove. There’s a difference between owning a gun and being a 2A supporter.

    • very true silver. but it is a numbers game. the more owners there are the more the poloticians will think,”maybe i better slow down on gun control”. after all his primary job is to stay in office. how does he know which of these gun owners are in it for the long haul. and since most of these pols are pretty spineless maybe he’ll hesitate.

      • The fact that someone buys a gun for the first time means they already believe in our 2nd Amendment rights or they have at least started the weighing of facts which will lead them to support the 2nd Amendment. An increase in sales and/or background check requests does not represent all first time buyers, but logic says some will be. Please be kind and helpful to new gun owners. These are or will be our allies and like-minded voters.

    • If you own a gun you just exercised your 2A rights. To not support the 2A makes one a hypocrite, which happens regularly, but generally speaking once someone owns a gun they tend to lean differently. And not Lean Forward.

  11. As there are more gun owners they will learn to shoot. They have taken the first step to self security. It will develop quickly to the fact they don’t want to give that up. It would also be interesting to know how many CCW requests have been made.

    • It took several events like this one, some good advice from friends, and a fun trip to shoot stuff to make me decide it was time to start buying guns.

      I’m now a big advocate of 2A and I’m saving my pennies for the next in a very long line of guns I want.

      The truth is that reality can surprise us: every day people are surprised that they are getting murdered/robbed/raped. No one expects it will happen to them. Reality also gives us a choice for our safety: responsible self-protection plus whatever public help is available, or just whatever public help is available.

      Now that I know this, I can explain to everyone willing to talk about it that I prefer the additional protection that training and a weapon will give me. It’s just like a fire extinguisher, once you get past the fear and political lies.

      It just makes sense to be safer. The more people that can explain it clearly and rationally, the more safe, gun-carrying people there will be.

  13. It tells me that I hope people get training with the guns they purchase. It increases the chances that an active shooter like James Holmes would’ve been stopped by an armed citizen.

  14. I bought an AR… Not so much because I needed another, but if a gun ban goes into effect it will be a good investment… I’m probably not the only one 🙂

  16. Despite the re-education efforts of the media most thinking people see the simple truth that one CCW in that theater would have made a huge difference. Just one. And we would not have to look at carrot-top on TV the next year as well as pay millions for his trial and incarceration.

    • I think that when it comes to recognizing the reality of the street (personal defense) the people see clearly what is going on around them. I think that when it comes to larger geo-political, macro economic, and national social issues that is where the mass media can more easily confuse them.

    • But that’s just it: gun-free zones are a magnet for crazies with guns. If the theatre allowed guns, he probably would have gone somewhere safer for this kind if massacre.

      According to Dave Grossman, since WW2, all but one of the public massacres with a gun were in no-gun zones. That’s a disturbing pattern.

      • Completely logical however. Do they want to kill people or be killed? The thing that really frosts me is Ft. Hood. All those qualified shooters and not a weapon or round of ammo on them.

        What we need a lawyer to chime in on is whether those establishments that ban CCWs could be exposed to any liability if they fail to provide the reasonable level of protection that a CCW might have provided.

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