DOTHAN, Ala. – Gun shops in the Wiregrass say business has been booming in recent weeks.
“The gun business is doing great. Not just here, but everywhere,” owner of Fast Guns Joe Watson said.
In fact, some gun inventories are depleted. Dan Nicholson is the managing member at Area 51 Tactical.
“It’s virtually impossible for us to get any kind of hand guns or rifles right now. Especially any thing besides duck hunting guns or stuff like that. But even that kind of stuff is getting hard to get just because your bigger shops have run out of everything and they’re trying to fill their shops with something,” Nicholson said.
Watson runs his gun shop from home. He says there are several reasons for the gun increases, besides the pandemic.
“I think a lot of it is media driven with the situation with George Floyd, all the riots going on and things like that. People are afraid and people that have never owned guns before are coming in and say “I need to buy a weapon,” Watson said.
Both shops are seeing many first time gun buyers.
“Any first time gun owner needs to get some training and there are places they can go and get training. Don’t just go out and buy any weapon. You need to find a weapon that fits your hand. You need to choose a caliber that is going to fit your use,” Watson said.
Nicholson encourages people wanting to buy a gun to have a little patience, due to the back log and decrease of certain inventory.
“If everybody would stop buying the way everybody was buying toilet paper a couple of months ago, now they’re buying guns. If they’d stop and slow down a little bit, we would probably get replenished a little bit,” Nicholson said.
