Barack Obama, World’s Greatest Gun Salesman
” The United States is the most heavily armed nation in world history, and it seems we have President Barack Obama to thank for it.
Before you ask: we’re not talking about the U.S. military, we’re talking about the firearms owned by the general population. The National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action (NRA-ILA) estimates that there are roughly 300 million firearms in the United States — and of those, nearly 40 million new firearms have been sold just since Barack Obama came into office in 2009.
This is a staggering jump of more than 15 percent in just over four years, in a nation 237 years old.
The current standing military of the United States, including National Guard, Air National Guard, and Reserve units, is approximately 2.2 million servicemen. Citizens have purchased enough new firearms since 2009 to equip every member of the military 18 times. Of those arms purchased, the overwhelming majority aren’t sporting arms (like Vice President Joe Biden’s recommendation of an archaic double-barrel shotgun). As I noted in December, people are buying very specific arms designed for very specific purposes:
Manufacturers were running full-bore, but couldn’t come close to keeping up with market demand. It wasn’t just the AR-15s, the AK-pattern rifles, the M1As, and the FALs that were sold out. It really hit me when I realized that the World War-era M1 Garands, M1 carbines, and Enfield .303s were gone, along with every last shell. Ubiquitous Mosin-Nagants — of which every gun store always seems to have 10-20 — were gone. So was their ammo. Only a dust free space marked their passing. I’ve never seen anything like it.
Every weapon of military utility designed within the past 100+ years was gone …“
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