Why One American Industry Is Thriving

Within the avalanche of pre-election polling data, two statistics shocked me. According to public opinion samples, 10% of Americans think the country is on the RIGHT track, and 27% approve of the job done by George W. Bush. So I began to wonder how these people would respond to the Obama win, and even more important, I wondered who these people are. Not surprisingly, it turns out that they’re almost all conservative Republicans. Most of them are evangelical Christians, and all of them would describe themselves as patriots. And as for how they’ve responded to the Obama win— they’ve gone on a shopping spree. They are buying guns and ammo, Big Time.

Since last Tuesday, gun sales and background checks for prospective gun owners have increased three fold across the country, and ten fold in certain parts of the country. In my state of Colorado, there have been 1500 background checks completed since the election. That’s 500 per day. Sales of AK-47s have depleted the nationwide supply, but only temporarily. Since the AK-47 is made in China, it’s safe to assume that more are on their way in the pipeline.

It’s reasonable to ask, “Why do so many people feel the need for a household arsenal?” Keep in mind that many of them are in that 10% group who saw the country as being on the RIGHT track before the election. America is on track to lose a million jobs in 2008. The cumulative deficit is now 10 trillion dollars. Almost all of the products we buy come from China, and we are ranked dead last in the industrial world on healthcare and education. But for 10% of our citizens, everything is hunky-dory. They want the comfort of having an AK-47 tucked away in the living room closet just in case the country starts to go downhill.

I’ve been saying for ten years that American politics would look very different if guns were used to perform abortions.