Posted on 11/11/2001 4:59:54 AM PST by Deadeye Division
Many people buying guns since Sept. 11
Sunday, November 11, 2001
Tiffany Y. Latta
Dispatch Staff Reporter
Robert Stone stared straight ahead as he fired a 9 mm handgun into the heart of the paper target.
His wife, Sharon, standing next to him, fired, but missed and then gasped after the blast.
The Stones were among 12 people recently taking a two-day beginner course in firearms at the New Albany Shooting Range.
Both said they always wanted to learn to use a gun but never acted on the urge until after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
"It got me thinking that I better have some kind of defense,'' said Mrs. Stone, 60, of Pataskala.
Her husband, 66, agreed.
"I know no terrorist is going to come in my home, but I want it for protection around the house,'' he said.
"Americans have been awakened. They've been sitting back happy, thinking that nothing is going to happen.''
Since the attacks, gun sales are up nationwide, as is the number of people taking firearms training at Columbus-area gun clubs.
From Sept. 11 to last Tuesday, FBI officials had nearly 1.8 million requests for background checks on people buying guns, compared with nearly 1.6 million during that period last year.
Many buyers are married couples, women and senior citizens who are purchasing guns for the first time, said dealers and officials at the Professional Gun Retailers Association, which has 9,000 members.
"Retailers are calling in, saying they are out of stock. For a while, guns were flying off the shelves,'' said Kathy Molchan, a director of the association, which is based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
Dealers say sales since the attacks have surpassed the rush to buy guns in the days leading up to Jan. 1, 2000, when some people feared that the change to the new century would crash computers worldwide, creating chaos.
"Y2K was a lot of talk. When people saw planes crash into the World Trade Center and watched the twin towers crumble, all of a sudden it wasn't playtime anymore,'' said Claire C. Marvin, part owner of the New Albany Shooting Range at 10299 Johnstown Rd.
"People said maybe it's time to do something instead of think about it.''
The range typically sells 160 guns in the month of September, but sales have jumped to 258 this year, Marvin said, and requests for firearms training doubled to 60 students in October.
Joyce Richardson, 34, who once had told her husband, Shawn, that she would never have a gun in her home, prodded him to enroll in a class on shooting handguns.
Repeatedly watching TV footage of the hijacked planes crashing into the World Trade Center and then learning that a strange man had been lurking outside her Hilliard home changed her mind about guns, she said.
Firearms sales doubled to 20 per month at GSC Academy, 576 E. Charring Cross Dr. in Westerville, after the attacks, said Ron Goeppner, chief instructor. The number of women and senior citizens taking firearms courses also increased.
"Typically this time of year is really slow, but because of Sept. 11, we have people thinking more about their personal safety and security,'' Goeppner said.
Thinking more about personal safety is good, but buying a gun isn't always the right choice, said Robert Siciliano, an expert on personal safety and author of The Safety Minute.
"Guns aren't the end-all, cure-all for personal safety. But that's what we've been brought up to believe,'' said Siciliano of Boston. "It's good they're taking a course, but lethal protection isn't always the best route.
"Fear is the result of emotional insecurity, and buying a gun is not going to cure emotional insecurity. It's pouring more gas on the fire.''
Geoff McCash of Westerville said he didn't think he'd ever touch a gun after a 40-year-old friend killed himself while cleaning one two years ago.
McCash, the Stones' son-in-law, said he was taking the class in New Albany to learn to use a gun for target practice and for self-defense.
"I think people are coming in because they want to feel safe,'' said McCash, 38.
"I think people are afraid. And I'm in that category.''
But if you buy his book, he will teach you how to be unarmed and safe and happy. < sarcasm >
Heck, it was a patriotic duty. All over the news I hear how the economy stinks.
So, I cut loose with a little cash.
Maybe waving a copy of the latest anti-gun law at a charging criminal will help.....
That is many times the "official" reason released when it is really a suicide. You also must get some training to make sure the chamber is cleared even though the magazine is out on self loading pistols.
The government of Columbus is very, very, anti-gun. I'm suprised that this even got run in the paper.
I, myself have been asked to help give the proper firearms safety classes to many people. I willingly do this (free of charge) because I believe it is a GOD-GIVEN right for each one of us to be able to defend ourselves and our loved ones.
Let us learn from this horrific event. We must, and we shall learn to defend everything that we hold dear. We should listen to, and watch for those who want to take our freedoms away from us.
BUT, we do this in the manner that we, the LAW-ABIDING AMERICAN CITIZEN has been taught. By contact our elected officials. By forming groups of Law-abiding people to air our grievences. By ELECTING those people running for elected officials who see things the way that we see them.
How true. For instance, they don't work well on grease fires.
I personally don't see how it is even possible to have a firearm discharge while one is "cleaning" it.
Most of the accounts of such incidents that I am familiar with occured late at night to someone who
had consumed a substantial amount of alcohol and then decided to clean his gun while he pondered some
problems or issues he was confronting.
(Yes HE. They are overwhelmingly male.)
I think it is a polite "looking away" to call it anything other than suicide.
Serbu BFG-50;
approx. 350 rounds of various types for same;
1 automobile;
2 recliners;
1 couch;
2 end tables;
1 coffee table;
1 trip for 4 to Orlando/Universal Studios.
By my calculations I will singlehandedly have the economy back in the pink by February or so.
:^)
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