Bob Haase’s Another Can Of Worms

Guns But No Ammo

For many American’s that don’t hunt or participate in shooting sports, they may not realize what has been going on. For a long time now, it has been difficult, if not impossible to purchase many kinds of commonly used ammunition.  I am not just talking about assault ammo, I am talking about commonly used hunting ammunition.

 

On a recent fishing trip to Mountain Home, Arkansas, I went to the local Walmart to purchase my fishing license.  I was surprised to see such a long line of people in the sporting goods area and asked the person in front of me if they were waiting to purchase a fishing license.  The person replied that everyone in line was waiting for a truck to come in to see if there was any ammunition on the truck.  He was waiting to purchase a box of 22 long rifle and had been trying for close to two months.  People I have talked to from other states are having the same problem.

 

Most of the common hunting ammunition is in such short supply that many of the places that sell ammunition is limiting the purchase to one box of shells per person.  Even for those that reload such as myself cannot even purchase the primers.  I was lucky this last week to find two boxes of 100 primers so that I can load another 200 rounds of ammo that I have the casings and bullets for.

 

I have been hunting for the last 50 plus years and I have never seen such a shortage of ammunition.  There have been many excuses such as people purchasing large quantities and hoarding it.  I know this can’t be the case since most stores have been limited purchases to one or two boxes per person for a long time.  The only thing that makes sense is all the ammunition that Homeland Security is purchasing. Their last order to the manufacturers was for 1.7 Billion rounds and they had other large orders before this.  This is taking up most of the manufacturing capacity of the ammunition manufacturers so that it limits their ability to make other ammo. I am not sure if this is to reduce the amount of ammunition available to the public, or some other reason, but it is getting to the point that people may not be able to find the ammunition they need for this fall’s hunting season.

 

Our Second Amendment provides us the right to bear arms, but it does not say anything about ammunition.  Is this a way around the Second Amendment?  Is this the answer to gun control to allow people to have guns but not ammunition?   This may sound crazy, but I think there is more to this ammunition shortage than people realize. If this continues much longer, that old saying that if we ban guns, only the criminals will have them may also hold true for ammunition. 

 

Just tell us the truth!  Why is there such an ammunitions shortage?  If you don’t hunt or participate in shooting sports, you may not care, but you should.  If we are not being told the truth about this, what else is being held back that we should know about? 

Bob Haase is the host of “Outdoors Thursday” heard Thursday mornings at 9:10 a.m. on News-Talk 1450 KFIZ.