Gun Sales Jump in Days Since Attack

Following last week’s terror attacks, gun sales in California rose about 30% over a similar period last year, the state Department of Justice reported.

The cause of the increase is unclear.

The department received more than 9,000 records of sales from dealers for the period starting Sept. 10--the day before the attacks--through Sunday, according to information officer Mike Van Winkle.

Last year, there were about 6,900 records of gun sales for the same week in September, Van Winkle said.

The figure is conservative, he said, because some of the records may represent more than one gun purchase.

Only one handgun can be purchased at a time, but it is legal to buy multiple long guns together.

Asked whether concerns related to last week’s hijackings may have spurred the increase, Van Winkle said: “We are not speculating because we don’t know if there are other factors involved.”

The California Department of Fish and Game announced Aug. 30 that deer hunting tags were still available.

However, information officer Jack Edwards discounted the possibility that deer hunters accounted for the increased sales. “Most people going hunting bought their firearms and licenses a long time earlier,” he said.

Annual gun sales in California peaked at about 600,000 a year in the mid-1990s after the Los Angeles riots but, with occasional spurts, they have declined to about 350,000 a year, state officials said.

Business at Trader’s Sports Inc., one of the biggest gun sellers in the state, is up about 30% since hijackers crashed jetliners into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. And Tony Cucchiara, president of the San Leandro company, said people are buying not only guns but also ammunition, gas masks, camouflage pants, water containers and military-style rations called Meals Ready to Eat.

“What happened was that people got another big scare when the Twin Towers were attacked,” he said.

Cucchiara said he ran out of gas masks and is having trouble getting more, but he received 15 pallets of MREs Wednesday.

“People are stockpiling,” he said, noting that some are buying ammunition by the case rather than the box.

Many purchasers, he said, are residents of upscale communities who want 12-gauge shotguns and handguns for personal protection. The most popular MRE, he said, is fettuccine Alfredo.

“You are seeing people who probably never bought a gun during Y2K,” he said.

“This is a group mostly from the suburbs who thought nothing would happen” to them or their families until last week’s attacks.