Free Republic

Smith & Wesson Brands Inc. has called Massachusetts home for 170 years, but the company’s CEO said that legislation pending in Beacon Hill could bar the manufacturer from making certain types of firearms – including AR-15 style modern sporting rifles – in the Bay State. As a result, the company decided to move its headquarters and facilities to the Volunteer State, which has stronger support for the Second Amendment as well as a lower cost of living.

“The ammunition problem isn’t new. It’s been a market factor for well over a year and is rooted in the extraordinarily high number of firearms that were sold over the past 18 months,” the trade lobby group for the firearms industry added. “Firearm sales skyrocketed starting in March 2020 and set an all-time high record that year, topping out at 21 million background checks for the sale of a gun. NSSF surveys revealed that 40 percent of those sales were for first-time gun buyers, an injection of over 8.4 million new owners. That pace hasn’t slowed, and through August of...

Now Biden is seeking to punish gun owners and at the same time chastise Russia by further banning the importation of firearms ammunition even as the country faces the greatest shortage of cartridges it has ever seen. “New and pending permit applications for the permanent importation of firearms and ammunition manufactured or located in Russia will be subject to a policy of denial,” the U.S. State Department announced last week. The start date for the “ban” would begin on September 7, 2021, while the sanctions are expected to be in place for a minimum of twelve months. The sanctions were...

The holstered firearm was inside the purse Det. Brittney Hilton of the Bridge City Police Department was carrying when the accidental discharge occurred. “I picked up my bag, my keys were on top,” she said. “As I walked around my desk, my purse swings out and it shoots out the bottom of my bag.” She heard the sound, but it took a moment for Det. Hilton to realize what happened.

Last week, the White House announced that it would stop approving new permits to import Russian-made firearms as well as ammunition. The ban, which is part of a new round of sanctions against the Russian government over its alleged poisoning and imprisoning of dissident Aleksey Navalny, is set to go into effect on Sept. 7, 2021. “Pursuant to the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 (the CBW Act), the United States will impose a second round of sanctions on the Russian Federation over its use of a ‘Novichok’ nerve agent in the August 2020 poisoning...

To that end, the AK-47 has been ideal for those who don’t adhere to “spit and polish” type drilling. Instead, the weapon was developed based on experiences gained when Russian soldiers – many of whom were conscripted to defend the motherland – fought for their very survival. It wasn’t uncommon for those conscripts to be deployed to the front line almost immediately, with little training and almost no instruction on weapons maintenance.

On Friday, the White House announced that it would stop approving new permits to import Russian-made firearms as well as ammunition. The ban, which is part of a new round of sanctions against the Russian government over its alleged poisoning and imprisoning of dissident Aleksey Navalny, is set to go into effect on Sept. 7, 2021.

Even as the sales of firearms have begun to slow in recent months, according to the latest data U.S. gun sales in the first seven months of 2021 were 13 percent higher than over the same period last year – which also blew away all previous records. With some 25.1 million firearms sold between January 1 and July 31, it was the largest seven months of the year figure since sales were first recorded in 1998.

Last year Vista Outdoors paid $81.4 million for Remington’s ammo business, after the Remington Outdoor Company – the nation’s oldest firearms manufacturer – filed for bankruptcy. Part of the acquisition of the Remington brand included the 750,000 square foot of manufacturing space on 1,200 acres in Lonoke. The facility in Lonoke now employs a little more than 1,000 people, and has been looking to even hire hundreds more. To keep the lines running, the plant has implemented a social-distancing protocol, which includes staggered break times to reduce crowd size. Additionally, a full-time nurse is at the site to ensure that...

While many other popular calibers, including 9mm, have risen in price during the great ammo shortage of 2021; .22 LR has increased but not nearly as significantly. It is now possible to find a box of 400 rounds (Browning HP 36 grains 1280 fps) for less than $140 – just about $0.03 a round according to a recent survey of offerings found on CheaperThanDirt.com. When compared to the 5.56 NATO or .223 cartridges for the AR-15, which can be well over a $1 per round, it is easy to see why some shooters are buying an AR chambered for .22...

Firearms makers big and small have reported increased sales, and last month Springfield, Mass.-based Smith & Wesson reported that its sales more than doubled in its last fiscal year to $1.1 billion. The company’s sales certainly remained strong into July, when the company claimed the top spots on Guns.com top firearms sales charts for the month with its M&P 15 Sport II Optics Ready, an AR-style modern sporting rifle that the company noted was engineered for a wide variety of recreational, sport shooting and even professional applications.

The shuttering of its ammunition factories contributed in part to this year’s ammunition shortage. Production had been halted at the start of the pandemic, and then remained idle during the bankruptcy. However, the Remington brand name was bought by Vista Outdoors, which now produces several types of ammunition. It took several months, but the old Remington facility in Lonoke, Arkansas is now up and running, almost at full capacity, Outdoor Life reported. It hired back hundreds of former and new employees and is now producing upwards of a million rounds every day.

A typical misconception is that the military always seeks to enlarge its force, obtain more equipment and keep what it has – while it is lawmakers who want to cut budgets and force a downsizing of ships and planes as cost-cutting measures. However, when it comes to the A-10 Thunderbolt II – known affectionately as the Warthog – it is the United States Air Force that is being “forced” to retain an aircraft the service would like to retire.

Even as President Joe Biden has called for additional gun control measures, lawmakers across the country have continued to pass so-called Second Amendment sanctuary laws or resolutions, which oppose and even prohibit or impede the enforcement of certain gun measures by the state or federal government. Proponents of “sanctuary” laws argue that many gun control resolutions are in fact a violation of the rights guaranteed by the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. Carroll County, Maryland became the first to explicitly use the term “sanctuary” in a resolution in May 2013, but it actually began a few years earlier...

President Joe Biden has been quick to tell reporters that he loves his shotguns, and as such tries to present himself as a strong supporter of the Second Amendment. However, everything else that Biden has said about firearms seems to be completely contradictory. Since taking office, he has repeatedly called for new gun control measures.

Normally August and early September are when sport shooters and hunters head to the range to prepare for the upcoming season, but this year that could be a problem. Firearms sales have remained strong this summer, dipping only slightly from last year’s record-breaking sales, but the problem is that ammunition has continued to remain in short supply. “Everything is difficult right now,” Dave Larsen, manager of Doug’s Shoot’n Sports of Taylorsville, Utah, told local news channel KUTV.

Even after the USS Missouri (BB-63) was officially decommissioned in 1992, the “battleship retirement debate” continued – with some military pundits arguing that the old battlewagons were still the best way to provide fire support for amphibious assaults as well as to other troops near shorelines. A counterargument was made that smaller warships such as the U.S. Navy’s Arleigh Burke-class destroyers could provide similar support fire from vastly smaller platforms, while close air support fighters and even advanced missile systems can do the job that was once the domain of the battlewagons.

Baseball legend Yogi Berra reportedly once proclaimed, “It’s like déjà vu all over again,” and while a bit of a redundancy, many shooters may be feeling such a sensation when heading to buy ammunition. The great ammunition shortage of 2021, along with high prices if you do find any, won’t likely end anytime soon–and it is unlikely to be contained to a single year.

A downside of the record sales in firearms is that the price of said firearms is also at record levels. For many, that could mean that you’re priced out of an AR-15 or a Glock handgun. While there are probably good options in “used” firearms, another option is to build one instead.

Last month a survey of American firearms enthusiasts found that seventy-nine percent of respondents said they’d cut down on their shooting-related activities due to the ongoing ammunition shortage. The survey, which was conducted by industry research firm Southwick Associates, further found that four out of five consumers had encountered “out-of-stock” situations.