Obama - Accidental Gun Salesman of the Year?

I have been amused. dismayed, and fascinated since the election of our latest president.  Sales of guns in "large retail outlets" have risen more than 39% since the beginning of the year.  

During hard economic times when most industries are experiencing unusual hardships, why are many types of businesses related to weaponry experiencing some of their best sales periods?

And what does President Obama have to do with it?  

Before the election, many conservative pundits and entertainers did a bang-up job of attracting the attention of many conservative voters that otherwise lacked passion for some of the core conservative issues (i.e. certain foreign policy and economic issues, among others).  It is not to say that these voters were no longer interested in these traditional issues, but that the situations had become very dire and they may have been willing to consider a change in direction for the country.

These conservative pundits (both amateur and professional) filled up the airwaves and bandwidth with incessant chatter about then Senator Obama's stance on gun control.  Some of these voices went  as far as to say that Obama was going to immediately rid the nation of guns (would that be such a horrible thing, honestly?).  These efforts were so effective in scaring the population that in October 2008, rifle and firearm sales were up by 14% from the previous year.  This is BEFORE the actual election, and before the introduction of any sort of legislation by Obama or other Democrats in the new session.

In Cobb County, Georgia, there has been an extremely high increase in permit applications - the numbers show that there were 3,238 applications in 2007.  Compare this to 7,576 in 2008.  The 2009 figures promise to be just as dazzling.

With the types of reasonable, "common-sense" gun control measures that President Obama supports, all of law-abiding citizens in this country that want to use guns for self-protection or hunting will still be able to do so.  Those that are interested in paramilitary group start-ups might have a bit more trouble.

So, everyone who has participated in this frenzy should just feel a little silly because the best of them was "got".   If I were one of  these people, I would be asking myself what kind of nonsense has been going on behind my back while I was stocking up on ammo and stockpiling weapons in my secret underground cellar in my backyard...  

Perhaps, just perhaps, there are more important issues to be dealt with.