Just before November’s election, gun sales in America shot through the roof. This was the storyline: Gun owners feared Hillary Clinton would, somehow, take away their guns.
Then the shocker: Donald Trump got elected.
But a funny thing happened. Gun sales around the country skyrocketed. The FBI reported more gun background checks on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, than ever before.
We’re going to talk about reasons for that, which include fear by liberals.
Hate crimes have spiked around the country, the FBI reports. Las Vegas never been a hotbed of hate crime. But even here, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reporteda few weeks ago, a woman was attacked by a 21-year-old man who she confronted after he yelled a racial slur.
Lara Smith is the spokesperson for the Liberal Gun Club. She said many of the people now interested in her group and in buying guns are worried about hate crimes.
“All over the country people are saying, ‘hey maybe this is a legitimate way to defend myself,” she said.
Smith said many people with liberal political views have had guns but now they're just being more vocal about it. The Liberal Gun Club is actually part of that. She said it started as a place for people with liberal views who strongly supported the 2nd Amendment to talk about guns.
She said many people in her group felt unwelcome in online forums with other gun owners with more conservative views.
Ryan Hamilton is with NRA-Nevadans for Freedom. He said he is happy to have people with a liberal point of view his side.
“I believe individuals, totally agnostic of any other political beliefs, have the right to keep and bear arms and that’s a right guaranteed in the Constitution," he said, "I’m happy to take support from people all over the political spectrum as long as they agree with that premise”
Gun sales around the country, Fortune magazine reports, have leveled out.
Ryan Hamilton, NRA-Nevadans For Freedom; Lara Smith, Liberal Gun Club, national spokesperson
