So you bought a gun recently. You’re not alone. Firearms have been selling briskly since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic last year. But now you need to either learn how to shoot or keep your skills sharp. And therein lies the problem.
Despite manufacturers pumping out as many bullets as they can make, in many places there are either none to be found or they’re becoming prohibitively expensive.
The clip, so to speak, is empty.
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That could be a problem for first-time gun owners needing practice to ensure safe operation of their weapon. “We have had a number of firearms instructors cancel their registration to our courses because their agency was short on ammo or they were unable to find ammo to purchase,” Jason Wuestenberg, executive director of the National Law Enforcement Firearms Instructors Association told the Associated Press.
Whether purchases were made for personal protection amid a rise in violent crime and fear over the impact of last year’s COVID-19 lockdowns or simply hunters and sport shooters adding to their arsenals, gun sales were way up in 2020.
According to the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System database, 39.7 million background checks were filed just last year. Another 22.2 million were filed in the first six months of 2021. And because multiple purchases could be linked to the same background check, actual gun sales could be much higher than those numbers.
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“When you talk about all these people buying guns, it really has an impact on buying ammunition,” said Mark Oliva, spokesman for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, who estimated to the AP that at least 8 million guns sold in 2020 went to first-time buyers.
“If you look at 8.4 million gun buyers and they all want to buy one box with 50 rounds, that’s going to be 420 million rounds,” Oliva said. And that impact is being felt by more than just recreational gun enthusiasts.
“We have made efforts to conserve ammunition when possible,” Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department spokesman Larry Hadfield told the AP.
That’s a dangerous spot for police departments to be in, with violent crime on the rise in the last year.
“A few months ago, we were at a point where our shelves were nearly empty of ammunition,” concurred Doug Tangen, the Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission’s firearms instructor.
Tangen told the AP that drills now consist of less shots as they look to conserve valuable ammo.
The shortage is forcing the United States to import ammunition from other countries, to the tune of a 225% increase since 2019 according to Panjiva Inc., a company that tracks global trade.
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