‘I can’t keep ammo in.’ National crises boost SC’s gun, ammunition sales
Across South Carolina, as many coffee shops, break rooms and sports bars quieted down or closed their doors altogether due to the pandemic, gun shops and shooting ranges came into their own as hubs of conversation, their success in no small part related to the anxieties clientele felt about the state of the nation.
Many people who have purchased guns and ammo from Jack Switzer’s Blue Steel Weapons Training Store in Ridgeland have bought for self defense, he said. They’re concerned about protests over police brutality or the election devolving into violence or looting.
“With [COVID-19], the sales went up, and then it slowed down a little bit, and then with this presidential election thing … sales shot right up,” Switzer said. “I can’t keep ammo in here. It goes out the doors as fast as I get it in. People come in here screaming for 9 millimeter, 45 millimeter, 40, all kinds of calibers. Even hunting, I can’t get it, because the factories are so short handed, they can’t get all the components.”
South Carolina does not have a county-by-county breakdown on gun sales or background checks, but a record-breaking 431,032 checks have been completed statewide as of Oct. 31. Last year, 328,221 were completed in the full year.
South Carolina Law Enforcement Division public information officer Tommy Crosby said the state has issued 79,375 concealed weapons permits as of Oct. 10, on track to outpace the 84,097 issued in all of last year. Approximately 20,000 permit applications are currently being processed, Crosby said.
Switzer said he’s seen sales increase by roughly 65% since COVID-19 hit South Carolina. Gun shops were allowed to stay open through the pandemic.
Ed Soto, owner of Palmetto Indoor Range and Sporting Goods in Hardeeville, had only one minute to speak to a reporter — 24 people were waiting for him to begin a firearms training course.
Since April, Soto said, business at the range had blown up, his concealed weapons permit classes swelling from 10 to 40 people.
“I’m here on my off day,” Soto said.
Switzer and Soto’s experience echo what’s going on across the country. Gun and ammo sales have increased amid anxieties over the pandemic, political unrest and the election. Other gun shop and shooting range owners in the state also said they’ve seen more business lately.
Lexington’s Defender Firearms and Training has seen sales go “through the roof” since the pandemic started, owner Eli Lykes said. The business used to train 150 students per month, and now they train between 300 and 500.
The business also saw jumps in sales around the police brutality protests and the election.
“A lot of people are concerned about the conditions going around the country,” Lykes said. “The uncertainty with the police brutality, uncertainty with the protests, and things of that nature, and then of course, uncertainty with the results of the election and people threatening violence if President Trump didn’t win the election.”
Lykes was one of several business owners around the state who said he has been rationing ammunition to customers.
Terry Jones, who helps manage her husband Michael’s gun shop, Freedom First Outfitters in Camden, said some stores can’t keep ammunition in stock right now and have come to her business to resupply. Customers can get only one box at a time for now.
“Our prices have doubled on ammo. Some tripled,” Jones said. “But we’ve seen online that they’re much higher.”
The FBI has completed 32 million background checks this year, more by far than any year since background checks started in 1998. March, June and July saw the greatest number of background checks this year, each month exceeding 3.6 million.
Todd Shaw, a political science professor at the University of South Carolina, said he believed some of the increases in gun sales could be attributed to hysteria over protests for racial justice, noting that much of the racial division in the United States is reflected politically.
“Since the 1970s, there has been this pattern of whites leaning towards the Republican Party and Blacks and other minorities leaning towards the Democratic Party, and those differences have only heightened over the years,” Shaw said.
He said it’s rare, but not unheard of, that political violence occurs. Data show that the vast majority of protests over police brutality were nonviolent.
Drew Kurlowski, political science professor at Coastal Carolina University, said a couple of factors may be involved.
First, he said, some individuals may have been concerned about a Democratic president and Senate coming into power and tightening gun regulation, so they felt a need to stock up.
Additionally, he said, people could have been buying guns out of fear of unrest based on the results of the Nov. 3 general election, which set a record with 161 million Americans voting. However, there has not been widespread unrest in the 10 days since, even when former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Kamala Harris were declared winners on Saturday.
During the early days of the pandemic, Kurlowski said, people could have been hoarding ammo for the same reason they stocked up on toilet paper — fear that they wouldn’t be able to leave their homes.
“There’s a chance that all of this is apolitical, and we’re seeing rational market actors reacting to a crisis,” Kurlowski said. “It could just be something as simple as that. Maybe that’s the happiest possibility.”
But Brian Nelson, the owner of Bluffton-based Lightning Tactical and Training, gave a much grimmer analysis of why people might be coming out in record numbers. His business has seen increased demand for ammunition, firearms and concealed weapons permit training.
“People are beginning to realize — and I teach it in every single one of my CWP classes — they have to be ready and prepared to protect themselves,” Nelson said. “I tell every student this — we are our own first responders. We have got to be prepared. The police are a response force. The police respond to crime, so on very rare occasions do you find that police actually prevent a crime from occurring.”
The police have no responsibility to keep the public safe, he said; their job is to investigate crime and keep the peace. Many people are just beginning to realize this, Nelson said, and are arming themselves for the first time.
In addition, the demographics of Nelson’s customer base have shifted recently, he said. The gun industry in the United States is largely dominated by white men.
Sales to “women in general [have] gone up dramatically, and then especially minority women [have] gone up dramatically,” he said. “I’ve seen a lot of Black women, a lot more than I used to see in past years. A lot of older people.”
Although the election has ended and protests have mostly stopped, Shaw, the USC professor, said anxiety persists about the potential for political violence.
“There was a real concern around the election that there could have been some level of violence and even racially motivated violence,” he said. “It hasn’t occurred, but it doesn’t mean that we’re [not] still in an uneasy period.”
Jones said she expected the frenzy to buy ammo and guns would continue into next year.
“This election has really caused it,” she said, “and I think that it’ll be like this for a while, until some things settle down.”
This story was originally published November 12, 2020 at 12:15 PM.
