Bob CollinsBecause of Barack Obama’s election, the sale of guns has shot upwards (pun not intended but since I’ve already made it….).
It’s a narrative that’s popped up many times since last November. In Albert Lea, the Twin Cities, and many major cities.
It was repeated this afternoon in a story in the Daily Republic of Mitchell, South Dakota:
The number of concealed pistol permits in the state has jumped almost 17 percent since 2006, and one gun shop owner said the election of President-elect Barack Obama has a lot to do with it.
“The day that Obama was elected, gun sales from distributors to gun shops shot up,” said Robert Brown, owner of 2nd Amendment Guns in Mitchell. “The gun world is really scared.”
Not that whipping people into a frenzy is necessarily bad for business, mind you.
“It scares me that I might be seeing a time when guns might be taken out of the people’s hands,” Brown said. “It’s sad.”
It also ignores the “win” the Supreme Court delivered last summer when it overturned a handgun law in the District of Columia. Still, it was a case in which Obama submitted a brief in support of the ban.
However, a 2nd Amendment expert says it’s not an issue Obama is likely to touch. “My sense is that Obama does not want to interfere with an issue that will, for the time being, be left up to the states,” says David T. Konig, Ph.D., professor of history and director of the Legal Studies Program, both in Arts & Sciences, and professor of law in St. Louis. “The issue will turn to controls, such as sales at gun shows or other limited restrictions on purchases.”
There is the question, however, of whether the matter will be left up to the states. If so, there’s nothing to indicate gun owners in Minnesota (and certainly South Dakota) have much to worry about. There hasn’t been a significant legislative attempt yet to overturn the nearly-six-year-old concealed carry law in Minnesota, and there’s little to indicate any lawmaker has the stomach for such a fight this session, either .
