Ammunition suppliers and manufacturers seem to be running short on the bread-and-butter of their trade these days. If gun shops aren’t already completely out of stock, they’re hawking bullets for about $1.50 each, depending on the caliber.
Customers at Range Master of Santa Maria have had reason to balk—or at least raise their eyebrows—at such numbers at the register, since prices on most ammo boxes have doubled or even tripled over the last eight months.
According to Range Master’s manager, Joe DeGeus, boxes of .38-caliber hollow-point bullets that cost about $20 just six months ago are now retailing for $56. Other types of ammo—the .357-caliber Magnum, say, or the .380-caliber automatics—are simply impossible to find from wholesalers.
DeGeus said that with ammo suppliers like Davidson’s, MT Sports, and RSR Group claiming a shortage on ammo-making components as well, gun enthusiasts have no choice but to take the hit to their pocketbooks.
“The guys that don’t have any ammo are saying, ‘My God, this is ridiculous! But I’ll take it,’” DeGeus said. “The guys that have stockpiles at home already are like, ‘I’m not paying that. I’m going to keep looking, or I’m going to start reloading.’”
For gun neophytes, “reloading” means reusing spent shell casings (called “brass”) by replacing the primer at the back end, filling the brass with gunpowder, and then crimping a lead bullet onto the business end. To get a bit more technical, the primer is an impact-sensitive dot of material right in the center of the bullet. It’s what the firing pin strikes when the trigger is pulled, which in turn ignites the gunpowder.
All types of ammo and the components used to make ammo—including primers—are in short supply across much of the state and the country. While theories behind reasons for the shortage are varied, one thing is certain: Demand has skyrocketed.
Dave McNamara, owner of Four Seasons Outfitters in San Luis Obispo, said he’s just selling what he can.
“Everybody thinks they need more ammo than they have need for right now,” McNamara said. “I don’t know whether it’s the change of [presidential] administrations, or the sky is falling, but the more they panic as far as thinking they need more, the more they buy.”
McNamara said that in 20 years of running his business, he’s seen shortages come and go in spurts, but never at the magnitude he’s experienced recently.
“We’re seeing more people far and wide now,” he said. “Everyone is looking for that needle in a haystack.”
According to gun-store owners, bullet manufacturers are months behind on orders and working frantically to keep up.
McNamara goes to sporting goods distributor Ron James for his ammunition purchases. James said that orders are being filled, just not in the quantity people want.
“[Ammo manufacturers] are back-ordered,” he said. “If they can’t keep up with the demand, they urge the customer to put it on backorder. Everyone is rushing and hoarding.”
The politics of fear
The ammo shortage scare has reached panic proportions, according to Range Master’s DeGeus. Recent gun shows in Paso Robles and Ventura sold out of their entire ammo stocks in a matter of hours, with buyers hauling out carts full of thousands of dollars’ worth of bullets.
DeGeus said the reason for the run comes down to one word: politics.
“The fear is that if the government can’t take the guns away, necessarily, they’re going to go at it from a different angle, and that’s to take the ammunition away,” DeGeus said. “That’s what most of the old-timers that come in here are saying, as well as the middle-aged guys that have been around the block a few times. They’re all very worried about this.”
Blog posts and Internet rumors griping that the Obama administration will tighten restrictions on gun ownership and place a ban on semi-automatics and handguns have helped fuel the hysteria, DeGeus said.
According to Ted Novin, director of public affairs for the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the anxiety has spread nationwide.
“The increase in demand for firearms and ammunition is largely attributable to gun owner concerns regarding the current political climate, both on Capitol Hill and in state legislatures throughout the United States,” Novin wrote in an e-mail to the Sun. “Many of the lawmakers in power have a long history of supporting legislation that violates the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans. Gun owners recognize this and are reacting accordingly.”
Novin added that other factors driving sales of firearms and ammunition include a worsening economy and the corresponding fear of crime.
The shortage may also be a result of a self-fulfilling prophecy, according to Sgt. Russ Mengel with the Santa Maria Police Department.
“Nationwide, there’s been a high demand for it—just about every bit of ammunition has been bought,” Mengel said. “The average consumer who is an avid shooter, who wants to be able to carry on their hobby, is going, ‘Holy cow, what’s going on?’”
The United States is one of the largest suppliers of ammunition in the world, and Mengel said the ongoing U.S. military efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan are also contributing to the shortage.
“We’ve been at war since 2001,” Mengel said. “It takes a lot of bullets to win this kind of conflict.”
Those bullets come from one place: the Lake City Army Ammunition plant in Missouri. Operated by Alliant Techsystems Inc. (ATK), a parent company of Federal Ammunition, Lake City manufactures more than 1.4 billion rounds of ammunition annually.
In the past, the plant sold surplus munitions to law enforcement agencies and the general public. Now, Lake City is running 24 hours a day to fulfill its contracts.
Rumors that the government told manufacturers to supply the military and law enforcement before citizens, Range Master’s DeGeus said, also contributed to the recent runs on ammo. That rumor, he said, came from ammo manufacturers like Remington, Federal, and Winchester.
Amanda Covington, spokeswoman for ATK Systems, said that she couldn’t discuss how much of her company’s overall manufacturing capacity is devoted to the military.
Civilians aren’t the only consumers facing ammunition shortages, either. When the Santa Maria Police Department got its last shipment of ammunition from its supplier, Mengel said, the department was told to “make it stretch.” There’s a chance more ammunition won’t arrive until next February.
Not to worry though, he said. That dearth doesn’t mean Santa Maria’s finest will run out of bullets.
“We’re fortunate we planned ahead,” he explained. “We have enough in our storage facility to get us through to next year.”
Bullets and bills
California has always been home to an odd mix of gun enthusiasts and anti-gun advocates. The state also boasts some of the most stringent handgun legislation in the nation. And now lawmakers seem to be going after ammunition, too—a fact that has gun owners and sellers worried.
One set of laws specifically affecting ammunition supplies in California is hunting guidelines put in place by the California Fish and Game Commission. Since July 2008, the commission has prohibited the use of ammunition and other projectiles containing lead for hunting in designated regions, including Santa Barbara County.
The commission guidelines, by way of Assembly Bill 821 (also known as the Ridley-Tree Condor Preservation Act), are designed to protect the California condor and other endangered species from lead poisoning. The condor has been protected as an endangered species by federal law since 1967 and by California state law since 1971.
On its website, dfg.ca.gov, the Department of Fish and Game names contamination from lead fragments in animal carcasses as one of the major causes of death among the state’s condor population, along with poison bait and environmental pollutants.
According to AB 821, people who violate the act would face a $500 fine for the first offense and anywhere from $1,000 to $5,000 for a second or subsequent offense.
However, the act also requires the California Fish and Game Commission—to the extent funding is available—to provide hunters within designated condor habitats with nonleaded ammunition at no or reduced charge through a coupon program.
Another piece of legislation currently making its way through the State Assembly focuses not on what bullets are made of, but how they are sold and transferred.
Authored by Assemblyman Kevin DeLeon (D-Los Angeles), AB 962 attempts to monitor ammunition sales in the state.
“The state doesn’t know who sells ammo [or] how much is being sold,” explained DeLeon’s chief of staff, Dan Reeves. “We have no means of tracking or regulating ammo in the state.”
If approved by Congress, the bill would amend the California Penal Code to read, effective July 1, 2010, “no person shall sell or transfer more than 50 rounds of handgun ammunition in any month unless he or she is registered as a handgun ammunition vendor.”
At one point, Reeves said, legislators proposed everyone should have a permit to buy handgun ammunition. That clause, however, proved to be “very controversial” and was ultimately dropped.
As written, the bill would require that vendors be thumb printed and obtain other personal identification information. It would also establish a database of registered handgun ammunition vendors maintained by the state Department of Justice. Violation of these requirements would be considered a misdemeanor.
Ammunition purchases would also be restricted to face-to-face transactions, effectively eliminating mail-order sales. People would still be able to purchase ammunition online, but would have to have it shipped to a registered vendor. Lastly, people enjoined from engaging in gang activity would be prohibited from possessing any ammunition.
Lawmakers, Reeves said, hope the bill will enable the state to catch a glimpse of the “ammunition-selling universe,” and by doing so cut down on the illegal sale of ammunition and the violence that stems from it.
Similar ordinances in the Los Angeles area, he added, have already proved effective.
“In less than 12 months, [law enforcement officials] have picked up more than 150 violent felons,” he said.
The requirements seem logical to Reeves, who added: “This is how we treat Sudafed, cold meds, cigarettes, and other items. Why can we do that safely behind the counter, and not ammo?”
Still, many individuals feel the bill treads on personal liberties.
“They’re limiting rights of law-abiding citizens and adding a bureaucratic hurdle that serves no purpose,” said Sam Paredes, executive director of Gun Owners of California.
Paredes also referenced legal history as an example of why the bill would fail if made law: A measure similar to AB 962 was enacted at the national level in the form of the Gun Control Act of 1968. One of the provisions of the act was the creation of a national registry of handgun ammunition purchasers.
The fact that the ammunition registry was repealed in 1986 by the Firearm Owners Protection Act is one of the reasons Paredes says his group opposes AB 962.
“These types of issues are promoted by people who don’t want anyone to have handguns or ammo. There’s no altruism here,” Paredes said. “This was done for 18 years nationwide, and it failed miserably.”
If AB 962 passes, Range Master’s DeGeus said, ammo will stay expensive and scarce for at least the next few years.
“People will end up paying higher taxes, they’re going to have to get registrations, and it’s going to cost more money to send [ammo] into the state. That’s just going to create more problems,” he explained. “Other states will follow because, after all, we are an example to the rest of the country.”
He said many gun enthusiasts consider the passage of more restrictive legislation on gun ownership and ammunition stockpiles as a step toward outright gun confiscation.
“We look at the circles of history and that’s how we know what’s going on. It’s right in front of us again,” DeGeus said. “Once you take away the people’s right to be able to defend themselves, then the government can step in and do whatever they want to do.”
Contact Staff Writer Nicholas Walter at nwalter@santamariasun.com. Staff writers Amy Asman and Jeremy Thomas contributed.
This article appears in Jun 25 – Jul 2, 2009.