Locked, cocked, not ready to rock

“Gun control? We need bullet control. I think every bullet should cost $5,000 ... Every time someone gets shot, people will be like, ‘Damn, he must have did something. S**t, they put $20,000 worth of bullets in his ass,’” Chris Rock said on his Bigger and Blacker HBO special.

I couldn’t agree more with him. And today, it is difficult to get your hands on ammunition.

It’s not because of legislation, passed by a liberal, gun-hating government. It’s not because bullets are worth $5,000 a pop because, in case you didn’t know, they’re not.
It’s because, ironically, Americans have been buying too many bullets.

This year alone, Americans have bought nine billion rounds, putting a strain on bullet makers to produce enough bullets to satiate the public.

Usually, Americans only buy seven billion rounds of ammunition a year, so that’s a pretty big jump.

Now, let’s put that in perspective. The notion of nine billion bullets is a hard image to for the mind to conjure.

It means Americans are buying bullets at a rate that would give every man, woman and child 30 bullets a year. Thirty bullets in the hand of every person you know.
So why the sudden jump in bullet sales?

Well, the most widely shared opinion is that gun enthusiasts are afraid that our oh-so-radical President and his liberal lackeys will be passing legislation to limit gun use.
This antigun legislation seems frightening to many. The only problem is nothing like it even exists.

Nothing specific has even been proposed. To be honest, Obama has seemingly been moving in the other direction. He recently just signed a law to allow people to carry loaded guns in national parks.

A more narrowly shared opinion – very narrowly because I just made it u – is that gun junkies all around the nation are planning a coup and may possibly kill everyone 30 times over.

It could be a culmination of a lot of things: the ongoing war overseas, our current economic woes, etc. 

So some theories are better respected than others. But does there really need to be a reason for Americans to buy bullets?

Could it just be that Americans love their right to bear arms more than usual?

I’m not a gun person – not for, not against.

You know that saying “Only a fool brings a knife to a gun fight?” I’m that fool.

That said, I think it’s obvious that I don’t have the gun bug like many of my fellow Americans. But our country is proud of three things: baseball, apple pie and guns.
So whatever the reason, the fact remains that Americans have bought 2 billion more rounds of ammo this year than in previous years.

Take that fact how you will – I can’t see anything positive coming from it. Stockpiling bullets won’t make the Obama administration more comfortable with the idea of gun control. Most likely, it will have the opposite effect.

Instead of buying piles of bullets for a possible doomsday where gun control laws are tightened, gun enthusiasts should think about taking a step back.

By doing so, and showing responsible ownership, gun laws would have no reason to change.