Hacker News Reader

Comment by ericmay | Hacker News Reader

Ammo is very expensive right now. Anytime there's something even resembling a deal it gets snatched up. Prices are 3x-6x pre-COVID. And with people continuing to horde or target practice, it's been hard for the supply chain to catch up.

For guns I think people are just buying stuff to buy stuff (i..e buying more guns than they currently have just for fun). I have seen more gun owners in the black and hispanic community (anecdotal) as well.

So, COVID-19 leading to supply chain interruptions, stimulus money, and a general fear of "SHTF" makes sense that there would be a lot more sales IMO.

Would love to see additional data and analysis though.

View on HN

Inflation fears are also a big driver. Bullets have a long shelf life.

You also forgot the crime wave ripping across the country and inadequate policing.

It’s not a wave. While it has spiked, we are way safer than we were in the 1990’s: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/30/us-crime-rat...

And less than in the 2000s?

There’s a generation of adults who grew up with a gradual decreasing of crime rates throughout their lifetime. A regression to where we were 20 years ago is cause for some alarm.

The grain of salt to add is that rates are dependent on reporting, just like rates of a disease are dependent on diagnosis.

In my part of the US, the rate of “burglar bars” on windows have slowly gone down and I see no uptick. This leads me to give credence the “crime down” hypothesis based on people’s behavior at scale.

On the other hand I see more preparation for civil disaster and disorder. Firearms may be more part of that story than a reflection of people’s thoughts about the potential for victimization during a “normal” day.

A rising awareness of the risks posed by house fires might also suppress the rate of burglar bar installations. If there were a fire in my house, I wouldn't want bars blocking my egress.

I also bet the popularization of alarm systems help as well.

I’ll add that crime data is created by police. And a lot of them report a crime whether or not it led to a conviction. So somebody can get charged with a crime, be not guilty, and they’ll still be added to the statistics.

Jesus, I didn't know people cared so much about metaphorical language choices.

Guess it's all narrative shaping though eh. It's good we have people like you to police little old me from speaking out against your chosen narrative.

Enjoy your spike.

I wasn't criticising your choice of words – just that people are over estimating the amount of new crime. This article talks about that phenonium: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/07/there-no-n...

They're not over estimating the amount of new crime. They're estimating the amount of unpunished crime which is why a "spike" or a "wave" whatever that even really means, is having a disproportionate response in gun sales.

Will be interesting to come back a year from now and see how many crimes were stopped by new gun owners.

How do you propose we measure that?

Follow up survey with the people buying guns? Whatever survey determined people buy guns because crime is increasing, call them back in a year and ask how often they used their gun.

The only people that do this is the NRA. The government put a sanction on that kind of research in govt agencies because they didn't want to give ammunition (ick) to the NRA funded by the taxpayer.

Stopping crime by not using the guns is the best way and it is hard to measure.

Knowing your neighbours are all armed discourages robberies in that area, how to measure this?

fwiw, the supply chain seems to be recovering at least for ammo. ammo prices are down about 50% since the peak around Feb. anecdotally, you'd have to pay 90c/round for decent brass case 9mm, now you can get it for <40c/round.

Yup, it was much worse leading up to the election.

From 2008 and 2016, every time I went to Walmart I would try to pick up a box of ammunition. I’ve stockpiled a significant amount.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com