The Right to Bear Arms: Over 10,800,000 Guns Sold in the USA in 2011.mp4

Read more at Ammoland.com: http://www.ammoland.com/2012/01/04/free-americans-buy-10800000-guns-in-2011-dont-f-with-usa/#ixzz1pwXoyY2f

Editor’s Note: Amid a host of concerns that include, but are not limited to, rising crime, a lack of law enforcement during a crisis such as an economic collapse and, most notably, the potential re-election of President Barack Obama for another four years, Americans are stocking up on firearms and ammunition like never before. Last year alone we saw sales of guns in the United States exceed 10,000,000, and according to a recent report some three million Americans are among those preparingfor worst case scenarios.

They are purchasing supplies that include self defense armaments, long-term food storage, and off-grid survival tools. Demand is so high for these essential “post-collapse” survival commodities that in December of 2010 it prompted Mountain House, the largest freeze dried food manufacturer in the world, to delay orders for months at a time. Now, similar to the ammunition shortages leading up to the 2008 Presidential election, Americans are increasingly worried about what may happen to their Second Amendment rights under another Obama term.  This has, once again, led to unprecedented demand. Ammunition shortages in popular calibers, for example, have been reported by numerous sources. Likewise, overwhelming demand for firearms has forced one of the world’s largest gun manufacturers to suspend all new firearms production orders because they simply cannot keep up.

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Via Off Grid Survival:

After our story on the Rise of the Prepper, we have been inundated with emails from readers telling us how hard it’s becoming for them to obtain certain types of ammo. We also had a reader send us a press release this morning from Ruger.

Effective Immediately Ruger has stopped accepting Firearms Orders. The Company says that they have had to temporarily suspend the acceptance of new orders after receiving requests for more than one million units.

Here is the Official Statement form Ruger:

SOUTHPORT, CT –Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. (NYSE-RGR), announced today that for the first quarter 2012, the Company has received orders for more than one million units. Therefore, the Company has temporarily suspended the acceptance of new orders.

Chief Executive Officer Michael O. Fifer made the following comments:

• The Company’s Retailer Programs that were offered from January 1, 2012 through February 29, 2012 were very successful and generated significant orders from retailers to independent wholesale distributors for Ruger firearms.
• Year-to-date, the independent wholesale distributors placed orders with the Company for more than one million Ruger firearms.
• Despite the Company’s continuing successful efforts to increase production rates, the incoming order rate exceeds our capacity to rapidly fulfill these orders. Consequently, the Company has temporarily suspended the acceptance of new orders.
• The Company expects to resume the normal acceptance of orders by the end of May 2012.

In the Rise of the Prepper article, we warned that with Guns, Gold and Emergency Food all setting record sales numbers we will likely see major shortages hit the marketplace. As people begin to stock up on preparedness related items in response to the coming election cycle, we will likely see nationwide shortages similar to what happened during the elections in 2008. I fear this is only the beginning.

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I could not find a picture of 10,800,000 guns but here is what 10,800,000 firecrackers look like:

The Right to Bear Arms: Over 10,800,000 Guns Sold in the USA in 2011

The United Nations may think they’re weapons of mass destruction, but Americans seem to disagree.

2011 was yet another record breaking year for gun sales, with Americans purchasing some 10.8 million firearms, a 14% increase over the previous year and up over 50% from ten years ago as reported by the National Shooting Sports Foundation:

Many indicators, including a record-setting 2011, show the firearms industry continues to thrive in a down economy and that the potential exists for another strong sales year in 2012, reports the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the trade association for the firearms, ammunition, hunting and shooting sports industry.

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Indicators such as background-check statistics, firearms production and importation, firearm-retailer surveys and on-the-ground reports from retailers nationwide reveal that interest in firearm ownership is high. “More and more Americans are choosing to exercise their Second Amendment rights, and they are doing so in a safe and responsible manner,” said NSSF President and CEO Steve Sanetti.

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One of the best indicators of firearms sales is the FBI’s National Instant Background Check System, which federally licensed firearm retailers use to conduct the mandatory background check on purchasers of new and used firearms. NSSF downwardly adjusts the NICS data by subtracting checks related to non-purchasing activity, such as checks for concealed carry permits, in order to gain a more accurate picture of market activity.

December marked an unprecedented 19th straight month of background check increases when compared to the same period in the previous year.

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Why are more Americans choosing to own firearms? Reasons range from citizens’ increased awareness of the Second Amendment protecting the individual right to own firearms that was reaffirmed in two recent Supreme Court decisions, to increased interest in personal and home protection that may be due to economic uncertainty, to increased interest in the shooting sports and hunting.

Politics has played a role, too, with a surge in firearms sale beginning in October 2008, in part because supporters of the Second Amendment feared the election of less gun-friendly candidates, including Barack Obama, and new, restrictive gun laws they might advocate. Though such legislation has not happened, industry professionals at the SHOT Show believe a similar reaction this election year is possible that could ignite another surge in firearm sales.

Related to the topic of gun sales is the public’s changing attitude toward ownership. A recent Gallop poll showed a record lack of support for gun control, with only 26 percent of Americans favoring a ban on the possession of handguns. When Gallup first asked Americans this question some 50 years ago, 60 percent favored banning handguns.

As sales climb, recent FBI data shows violent crime continuing to fall in the United States, with homicides dropping out of the top 15 causes of death in the country. The statistics undermine a favorite argument of anti-gun groups that “more guns equal more crime.”

“These statistics vividly demonstrate that the lawful possession and use of firearms by law-abiding Americans does not cause crime,” said Lawrence G. Keane, NSSF senior vice president and general counsel. “There have never been more firearms in civilian possession in the history of the United States, and crime, including homicide, continues to decline throughout the country.”

According to Ammoland, more guns were purchased last year in the United States than than there are active duty military members in the world’s fourteen largest armies combined:

• Russian Federation    1,027,000
• North Korea 1,106,000
• South Korea 687,000
• Vietnam 455,000
• India 1,325,000
• China 2,285,000
• Iran 523,000
• United States 1,468,364
• Republic of China 290,000
• Brazil 327,710
• Pakistan 617,000
• Egypt 468,500
• Cuba 49,000
• Ukraine    129,925
• Above Total = 10,758,499

If you assume an average length of each gun as two feet that would be 4090 miles of guns.  That is fourteen times the length of the Grand Canyon and all most twice as long as the Mississippi River and 17,280 times higher than the Empire State Building.

Japanese Fleet Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was once quoted during World War II as saying, ”you cannot invade the mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind every blade of grass.“

Enemies of the people of the United States and our Constitution should take heed. We’ve got guns. Lots of them, so just back off.

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Overwhelming Demand: Ruger Suspends All New Firearms Orders: “Incoming Order Rate Exceeds Our Capacity to Rapidly Fulfill These Orders”

In the autumn of 2008, as Presidential hopefuls sparred over whether we had entered a recession or not and well before the onset of the most serious global crisis since the 1930′s, trend forecaster Gerald Celente advised his Trends Journal subscribers to prepare for the worst and plan for the best. “It will be,” warned Celente, “like nothing we’ve ever seen in our lifetime.”

The aware and prepared … those understanding just how out of control society would become, and those who had acquired the skills for survival would stand the best chance of navigating the chaos safely.

But Americans were not prepared. Not by a long shot

Very few had the foresight to predict that the economic system and social fabric of our nation would be threatened with upheaval and disarray.  But some, whether through independent education or through intuition, deduced that there was a real possibility of a system shock so significant that life as we know it could be on the verge of a major paradigm shift – perhaps even a complete collapse of our economy and resource infrastructure.

As natural disasters around the world took the lives of hundreds of thousands, space agencies warned of solar disruptions that threaten our power grid, the economies of the world slid further into depression, and tensions between the world’s financial and resource super powers grew, more and more people began to realize that the stability we have come to depend on to live our daily lives was nothing but illusion.

With very few places to turn for support, most headed for the internet, where communities had popped up to discuss possible disaster and collapse scenarios, and ways to minimize the impact on oneself and family. That it was happening or could happen was no longer the question.

The real question was how to survive it when it finally came to pass.

With none of us ever having experienced (or even imagined) such a possibility before, many turned to guidance from experts in their fields – people  like Gerald Celente or Marc ‘Dr. Doom’ Faber, who had an uncanny ability to see developing trends, and authors like survival expert James Rawles who wrote the popular economic collapse and survival cult classic Patriots and William Forstchen who penned One Second After, a frighteningly realistic look at what life without the grid might look like. First it was thousands, then tens of thousands of concerned Americans who began learning the essentials of survival by learning from each other with resources offered at web destinations like the American Preppers Network, Doctor Prepper, Survival Mom, Off Grid Survival and Ready Nutrition.

Those who chose to insulate themselves against coming disaster were often vilified or dismissed as lunatics by friends and family alike. And while many chose to ignore the trend which had become quite apparent, those who had the willingness to consider a different reality than had been painted by the powers that be just kept on preppin’.

As global malaise continued and the people began to lose confidence in political platitudes and corporatist solutions, the movement towards preparedness, survival and self reliance grew. After having seen what took place in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, many came to the conclusion that if the worst were to happen there would be no government to help, no 9-1-1 to call, and no emergency management agency to distribute food or water.

Today, at the cusp of possibly the most trying times in human history, more Americans than ever before are preparing for the possibility of disaster.

As many as three million Americans now fall into the category dubbed ‘preppers’ – people who are making detailed plans for the end of the world as we know it.

The preppers are an ever-growing group of survivalists who take extreme measures to prepare for a major catastrophic event.

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More than 300,000 people a month visit the movement’s website, survivalblog.com, which catalogues how people are preparing for the worst.

The website has been set up by James Rawles, a former US Army intelligence officer, who is one of the movement’s leading figures.

Speaking to The Times, he said: ‘Should the worst happen, it’s become apparent that the Government can’t provide for everybody. And now that realisation is becoming more widespread.‘

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‘People invest so much money in life insurance,’ Mr Ralston told National Geographic. ‘This is life assurance.’

He is like some of the people featured on National Geographic’s new show Doomsday Preppers, which chronicles a new prepper each week, delving into their conceptions of the end and what they’re doing to prepare for it.

‘It’s not a hobby, it’s a lifestyle,’ Gloria Haswell told National Geographic. She and her husband spend 50 hours a week getting ready for a climate shift in the poles.

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‘These are not just a handful of people living in the mountains,’ National Geographic Channel’s executive vice president of programming Michael Cascio told the Wall Street Journal. ‘They’re everywhere.’

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The Journal notes that Nat Geo has begun appealing to a growing subculture that has seen the past disasters – from last year’s tsunami and earthquake in Japan to riots to economic uncertainty – and have wanted to prepare the best they can.

‘The last few years have probably exacerbated the doomsday fear,’ Mr Cascio told the Journal. ‘The world is changing.’

Source: UK Daily Mail

This week the National Geographic series Doomsday Preppers debuted to an audience of four million, a testament to the fact that preparing for disasters – regardless of the kind – is a growing trend, and one that’s popular even among those that have been affectionately dubbed the sheeple.  No doubt some of those watching the show, who never considered the possibility of far-from equilibrium events, will take to preparing right away.

Most seasoned preppers will agree that those first few weeks and months of preparedness are the most stressful, with emotions being described by newbies as anxiety and panic. For those just getting started, you should feel better knowing that it’s better late than never.

What you may be experiencing today isn’t panic. It’s a sense of urgency, and that’s a positive motivator that can, with focus, drive you to quickly and effectively achieve your goals.

Panic is what we’ll see from those remaining 99% of Americans who have failed to take measures to protect themselves from the coming devastation. 

(*Note: The preparedness books and websites mentioned in this article are only a handful of fantastic destinations you can visit to read articles and gui
des, join communities, and download resources. Check out the Web Destinations at SHTFplan.com and The Prepper Website for an extensive list of excellent resources.)

Hat tip Red Leader

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Oregon based Mountain House, a division of Oregon Freeze Dry, Inc., has confirmed reports of shortages in their freeze dried food product line.

In an email to SHTFplan.com, Mountain House Sales Division Manager Melanie Cornutt said it is true that larger distributors and dealers are receiving limited stocks of inventory, and that Mountain House is unable to provide freeze dried foods in #10 cans to smaller distributors due to significant global demand. A number #10 can is generally purchased for larger camping groups or for emergency food storage, as it holds approximately six pounds, or 13 cups, of food with approximately 10 – 25 servings per can.

When asked what the cause for the atypical demand may be, Ms. Cornutt said, “we have nothing concrete, but we believe this is contributing to most of it –  Federal reserve talking about buying $600 billion worth of treasury notes, which could de-value the USD, hence causing inflation fears.  In addition, we have had many Americans call and express concerns with our current government.”

Though recent reports suggest that US emergency service agencies, law enforcement and the military have stepped up preparedness efforts, Ms. Cornutt rebuffed rumors that the Federal government may be responsible for acquiring much of the food for emergency services preparations saying, “the Federal Government/FEMA are not making large purchases of our Mountain House #10 cans.”

A leading online emergency products firm and distributor to agencies such as Department of Homeland Security and the TSA also put this rumor to rest, saying the government “has not purchased more than normal,” in recent months.

Nitro-Pak, another preparedness web site and large distributor of Mountain House Freeze Dried Foods, has alerted customers that emergency food demand is so high, their processing time for new orders is approaching one month, citing inflation fears as the main culprit. “Orders with #10 can foods or food reserve units are processing in about 28 business days due to the extremely high demand that has been caused by our nation’s current political & economic uncertainty as well as high inflation fears. We anticipate prices will soon rise as are all food prices worldwide,” reads a shipping update memo on the web site.

When asked about inflation fears, a Nitro-Pak representative said that inflation resulting from government policies seems to be the main motivating factor for their customers. The representative also cited the popularity of the preparedness trend, suggesting that recent Glenn Beck episodes promoting food storage may have something to do with the interest in personal food preparedness.

Mountain House says that the production delays within their freeze dried food division should be resolved soon. “We anticipate this to continue through February/March of 2011,” according to Melanie Cornutt, “this timing may change, but as of today, this is the best estimate we have.”

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FYI: Government Buying Out All The 5.56 Military Surplus Ammo & Is Telling Ammo Dealers To Stop Selling To Their Vendors & Civilians.

 

 

 

 

Government buying out all the 5.56 Military surplus ammo and is telling ammo dealers to stop selling to their vendors and civilians.