Infowars.com
A gun shop in Texas has turned to making its own ammo in an attempt to keep up with the overwhelming demand for bullets in the midst of a national shortage that many believe is being purposefully exacerbated by the federal government.
Paul Carter, an ammunition manufacturer licensee at East Texas Ammo in Mineola, told KLTV “Right now our .22 caliber long rifle is non existent and I’ve never heard of such a thing in all of my life.”
Carter’s staff are working overtime on their own semi-automatic commercial loaders that enable the store to produce its own ammunition.
“We have people from the metroplex and Louisiana and Oklahoma that come to our shop to buy ammunition and we’re scrambling just to find the products to put it together,” Carter told reporters, adding that he is barely able to meet the demand.
“For us it’s just now really happening because we’re just now finding that we can’t get components in, we are just struggling, struggling and struggling to find some,” added his wife Debbie Carter.
The couple say that they are receiving requests for ammo from police departments in the wake of a national shortage that has forced some law enforcement agencies to barter between themselves to meet demand.
“We’re trying to supply it if the police department or officers need ammunition, for qualification,” Carter said.
KLTV.com-Tyler, Longview, Jacksonville, Texas | ETX News
Many gun store owners are reporting that they have never experienced anything like the demand for firearms and ammunition that they are currently witnessing in the wake of a renewed government push for gun control.
Owners at Blue Steel Guns & Ammunition in Raytown, Miami recently told The Miami Herald that customers were so hungry for ammo that they couldn’t even stack shelves with fresh supplies before they had all been bought. The store owners also noted that .22 calibers were completely out of stock, despite a brick of 500 .22s having increased in price from $18 to $70 in just three months.
Gun stores across the nation are resorting to bullet rationing in an attempt to satisfy as many customers as they can.
Many store owners believe that the recent mass ammo buys on behalf of the Department of Homeland Security are one factor in the shortages.
“My understanding is these are standing, not necessarily take-delivery, orders,” Larry Swickard, a spokesman for the Western Missouri Shooters Alliance has said.
“But the fact that Homeland Security, and the government in general, has offered no reasonable explanation for such huge purchases would be more than enough to fuel the fears of those inclined to see conspiracies behind every change in a routine.”
“…it seems to be having a ripple effect in that when people see a significant number of people buying up all the ammo they can find, they follow suit for fear of being left out with none for themselves,” Swickard added.
Kevin Jamison, also of Western Missouri Shooters Alliance, said “Panic buying seems to account for some of the shortage, but I don’t believe it can be all of it.”
Weapons manufacturers and suppliers to the federal government have suggested that the DHS’s ammo purchases, including another recent order of 360,000 .40 cal bullets, represent an attempt to dry up supplies as part of an end run around the Second Amendment.