March 01, 2009

Ammunition Shortage Nationwide


Listen..can we talk?

There's a well-known comedienne who used to say that, and it was funny, but what I want to talk about is no laughing matter.

I came across an article today which really hit home, because of something that happened yesterday, while my husband and I were out shopping.

We had stopped by Gander Mountain to pick up a few things, and while we were there at the counter with several others making purchases, another customer walked up, and laughingly said, "Yeah, you better get what you can now, while you can still get it."

Others, smiled, and nodded in agreement, and the comment was made that it wouldn't be long until you'd have to be giving up what you had managed to get. Another asked if he had started stock-piling food, yet, and the reply was, "I'm not letting my family starve, no matter what I have to do."

From there, we went to another store with a Sporting Goods department. We were waiting to check out, and another customer asked the clerk for a certain kind of ammunition, and the clerk said that they were out of it. He asked for another kind, and was told the same thing. He asked for a third kind, and was again told that they were out of it.

He then reached over to take something from what we were waiting to pay for, and my husband told him to put it back, it was his. Not to be deterred, the customer asked for something else, and the clerk practically yelled at him, that he had already told him that they were out of everything. He left, but by then the clerk was riled to the point of ranting.

He said, "These idiots who keep trying to buy up all these guns and ammo! Don't they know that Obama can't do a single thing about preventing people from buying guns? Don't they understand that he can't just take them away from them,either? It's a multi-billion dollar business, and he's not about to do anything to stop that! Looks like they'd wise up, sometimes!"

Well, Mr. Irate Clerk, maybe you should try keeping up on current events, by reading information found in the article that the following excerpt was taken from, and maybe then you might just understand why all 'these idiots' are trying to buy what you're there to sell..when you can get it.

"If you, like thousands of other Americans, have Googled to find out why we are in the middle of a nationwide ammunition shortage, you would have stumbled across this 2007 blog entry.

In it, I corrected a poorly researched Associated Press story by Estes Thompson that claimed the military’s consumption of ammunition was responsible for police ammunition shortages here in the United States. Few things could have been further from the truth, but it seems rather apparent, in retrospect, that the goal of that AP article wasn't to find the truth as much as it was to (falsely) lay blame for the police ammunition shortages at the feet of George W. Bush.

The real fact of the matter is that the military got the bulk of its small arms (pistol, rifle, machine gun) ammunition from one contracted ammunition plant, and that plant wasn’t even running near capacity. The military’s consumption clearly wasn’t to blame, and anecdotal evidence and statements from ammunition manufacturers strongly suggested that police departments themselves caused the 2007 ammunition shortage by purchasing far more ammunition than they had in the past.

But what is causing our current ammunition shortages here in 2009?"

For the rest of the article go here.

It's just unbelievable how many there are out there, refusing to believe, or even willing to listen to the truth. It will be a sad day when they finally have to stand face-to-face with it, though.

Reminds me of something my Big Mama, a very wise woman, used to say:

"Those who won't listen, will have to feel."