EDITORIAL: No need for run on guns

Nov 20, 2008 (The Evening Sun - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- NYT | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- Seems like most American industries these days are lining up for a federal bailout.

But the gun business sure is booming.

And that, too, might be a government bailout of sorts. There's fear among some gun owners, locally and nationwide, that the new Obama administration means tough times ahead for gun owners. So they're adding to their arsenals now before it's too late.

Back in the Great Depression, the initials NRA stood for National Recovery Act. And just a few weeks ago, the National Rifle Association may have helped this firearms-industry recovery along by advertising heavily against the Democratic president-elect.

Since the election, though, the NRA has taken a more conciliatory tone.

"I hope President-elect Obama keeps his promises and protects gun rights," says NRA spokesman Wayne LaPierre. "If he does that, we'll be cheering."

Now, much of the tough-times talk seems to be coming from gun dealers themselves.

Barack Obama is "a gun-snatcher," Houston gun shop owner Jim Pruett explained to The New York Times. "He wants to take our guns from us and create a socialist society policed by his own police force."

Nationwide, gun sales rose 14 percent last month, although federal law-enforcement officials cautioned that gun sales have been extremely volatile. For example, rifle and handgun sales surged 17 percent in May, compared with May 2007, long before Obama had clinched the Democratic nomination. Sales then fell and were essentially flat by September compared with the year before, even as the campaign heated up.

Whether or not the recent run on guns will continue is anybody's guess. Still the dire predictions of new gun restrictions look like mostly bank and little buckshot.

First of all, the president can't just unilaterally make new laws governing guns or anything else. (That power is reserved to Congress in the Constitution in Article 1, just a couple of pages before the Amendment.)

And neither Congress nor the president-elect -- who's promised he's not out to disarm the citizenry -- seem likely to want to pick a fight with the NRA any time soon.

Besides, in a landmark Second Amendment decision this term, the U.S. Supreme Court for the first time recognized a fundamental right to bear arms.

This settles a growing consensus among constitutional scholars, even those on the left, that private gun ownership is a constitutionally protected right. Liberal Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe, for example, flatly stated gun ownership is an individual right eight years ago in the most recent edition of his influential treatise on constitutional law.

Gun purchases have also been climbing because of the worsening economy, which fuels fears of crime and civil disorder.

"Generally, we know that hard economic times always result in firearm sales," says James M. Purtilo of Silver Spring, who publishes the Tripwire Newsletter.

"A lot of people are buying them as an investment," according Oakdale, Pa., gunshop manger Chris Casella. "Better than gold."

Maybe so, but if the feared gun shortage doesn't materialize, those firearms could be a lot harder to spend than bullion in a depressed economy.

Now, if only someone would start a rumor that the Democrats intend to crack down on other consumer goods -- General Motors cars or new homes for example -- we might turn this economy around in no time.

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