“The Beginning of the End”

I received a text message from a friend this morning who told me a friend of his had gone to Wal-Mart to buy ammunition. I’ve no idea what the current state of ammunition inventory is; I know that as of a couple of weeks ago, the shelves were pretty much bare and you couldn’t find so much as a box of .22 Long Rifle available.  Only some of the less demanded calibers, like .38 Special and .45 Colt, were still in stock.  All .223, 7.62×39, 9mm, and .45 ACP was pretty much cleared out, but it was the absence of .22 Long Rifle that really surprised me.  The twenty-two is the staple of plinking and target shooting.  The idea that I would need to pass a background check any time I want to buy a box of it really bothers me.

Well, according to my friend, his buddy was told he was limited to three boxes of ammunition.  He assumed that meant three bricks of .22 — you know, those 500-round packs that contain ten 50-round boxes each.

Nope.  They told him he could buy no more than three boxes of fifty rounds each.

It’s possible that this is just a response to overwhelming demand, but given that Wal-Mart has already made noises about not selling more ammunition in the future, I think we’re seeing yet another retailer knuckle under to pressure from the state where guns and ammunition are concerned.  The real triumph of today’s political climate is not the laws passed to regulate firearms.  It’s the successful marginalization of guns and gun owners, equating firearms with vice and making the carry and sale of firearms and ammo something stores won’t touch because they don’t want to be branded “unclean” by popular culture.

This is, indeed, the beginning of the end of the gun culture in New York.  I expect other states will fall at lesser or greater rates of decay.