Voting With Their Wallets

I went into Sportsman's Warehouse in Meridian Saturday to buy a replacement belt.  (The belt that I bought a few months back at Cabela's suffered a catastrophic belt buckle failure -- the metal casting broke.)  While I was there, I went over to the gun section to see what the state of things was.

Let me explain that when we first moved to Idaho in 2001, Sportsman's Warehouse was one of those "Wow! We moved to America!" experiences.  I am used to gun stores with dozens of handguns under glass -- but usually one each for a particular model and finish.  If they had a Colt Government Model in blue, they also had one in stainless steel, and maybe in nickel.  But at Sportsman's Warehouse, they did not just have them under glass -- they had dowel rods sticking out of the wall with multiple copies of the same model and finish waiting for sale.

When I wandered over to the gun counter Saturday, there were only a few handguns available for sale, and all of the "assault weapons" (or in preferred terminology, "MSRs" for "Modern Sporting Rifles") were gone.  There were signs explaining that MSRs were now one to a customer, and any ammunition was a maximum of three boxes per type to a customer.