Clinging to their guns

Maybe Barack Obama was right about bitter Pennsylvania residents clinging to their guns and religion.

Since Obama's election on Nov. 4, gun dealers in Pennsylvania (and across the nation) report sales increases of up to 50 percent.

"People are panic-buying," Russell Jones of Jones Gun Shop in center city Allentown told The Morning-Call newspaper.

With Obama, a longtime gun-control advocate, soon to occupy the White House, and Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate, anti-gun groups could have a field day with new restrictions or outright bans on weapons.

From The Morning-Call:

"(Obama's) rhetoric regarding the Second Amendment is deceptive," said Lawrence Keane, senior vice president and general counsel for the National Shooting Sports Foundation. "He cannot say he supports the Second Amendment and then say he wants to ban semiautomatic firearms."

Keane's group estimates gun sales are up about 10 percent so far this year and were up about 15 percent in October. He said the increase is "primarily driven by the election," and he expects sales to jump even further this month.

Joe Keffer, president of the Pennsylvania Association of Firearms Retailers, said the last time he saw sales so high was in the early 1990s, when federal officials were debating the assault weapons ban.

Keffer, who also owns a gun store near Lancaster, said sales of assault rifles and other items remained high for nearly a year before the ban ultimately passed in 1994.

He expects the current zeal to buy guns could be similarly sustained.

"We're what, two months away from him even taking office?" Keffer said. "I think there's a good possibility it could continue."

Read the full article by reporter Brian Callaway at the newspaper's Web site.