As coronavirus stokes fears, sales of guns and ammo surge at Kansas City-area gun shop
Grocery stores can’t keep toilet paper and Clorox wipes in stock. But at Frontier Justice, the firearms store and gun range in Lee’s Summit, it’s 9-millimeter ammunition, rifles and handguns that fly off the shelves.
The reason: Fears of future civil unrest in the face of possible massive unemployment and financial strain as cities and counties across the United States require businesses to shutter their doors to prevent the spread of the coronavirus COVID-19.
“I know 100% its because people have concerns, because that’s what people are saying as they come in,” said Bren Brown, president and owner of the store outside Kansas City. “They’re buying ammo and firearms.”
She called the amount of buying, “like Black Friday-type sales.”
The store, which typically keeps a three-month supply of 9 mm ammunition in stock, sold out their supply within one week, Brown said, forcing the store to restock more than once.
“I think the biggest concern in times like this, that are uncertain, is what happens when people lose their jobs and they run out of food,” Brown said. “Desperate times bring desperate measures and people want to be able to protect themselves and their loved ones which, of course, is their Second Amendment right.”
On Sunday, a line of some 35 patrons waiting outside the front doors of the store never seemed to get shorter. A stay at home order issued by local city and county governments, to take effect across the metro region at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday, will require nonessential businesses to close.
To promote social distancing and sanitation, Brown said she is allowing only a handful of patrons in at a time. People waiting outside were required to stand at least six feet apart per the requirements of social distancing.
“My husband has wanted a gun for a while,” said Jessica Thomas-Stephens of Independence. “Seeing kind of the mass panic, it just became more needed to have on hand.
“I mean he wanted a gun before, just for general protection. But concern has increased. If somebody wants something, they’re going to go ahead and take it. If they have better means than you, they’ll get it.”
Thomas-Stephen said she hopes that, as time passes, the community will pull together rather than fray.
“Like after 9/11 there were two different ways,” she said. “There were people who were afraid of cultures they didn’t understand and became violent. There were those that sought to improve the community and help their fellow person.”
She prefers to think the latter will will happen. But she doesn’t know.
“It’s a toss up,” she said. “We live in a world where evil wins sometimes, and sometimes the good wins. It’s really going to depend on everybody’s heart at the end of the day.”
Jason Kaske, 31, of Gladstone, arrived to buy a handgun for protection.
“Yeah, what’s going on kind of provokes this,” he said, although he’d contemplated buying a gun before. “People do crazy things in crazy times. Better to have something to protect yourself and not need it, than not have it and need it.”
The line was so long, he left without purchasing rather than standing outside beneath a steel gray sky on a cold, raw Sunday. “My intention was to do so, but the line isn’t moving,” he said. “Everywhere else you go, it’s the same way.”
He has a buddy who owns guns. “Seeing as I didn’t buy one today, I’m buying one tomorrow from my friend,” he said.
National trend
The Lee’s Summit experience is being reflected nationwide. In February, before more recent restriction, the internet retailer Ammo.com told ABC News that the company had a 309% percent increase in revenue and 222% rise in transactions.The group called sales “unprecedented,” ABC reported
In North Carolina, one gun shop owner said his sales looked to be the best his store’s 60-plus-year history. The owner of two other gun shops saw an uptick in people taking classes and practicing at firing ranges.
“We’ve had people come in and say with all the panic in the news they’ve decided to buy,” owner Brian Sisson told the Charlotte-Observer.
FBI background checks for new gun owners have apparently skyrocketed. On March 16 they were up 300 percent compared to March 16 of last year, according to multiple news accounts.
“I’ve been in the business for 10 years and I’ve never seen it like this,” Mark Healy, the owner of a self-titled dealership in Tempe, Arizona, told Newsweek magazine. “Not even after the shooting at Sandy Hook when they were talking about taking guns away.”
This story was originally published March 22, 2020 at 6:27 PM.
