Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/27/us/guns-2020-election.html?searchResultPosition=2
Oct. 27, 2020
By Dionne Searcey and
CHANTILLY, Va.— Like many Americans,
two women a thousand miles apart are each anxious about the uncertain state of
the nation. Their reasons are altogether different. But they have found common
ground, and a sense of certainty, in a recent purchase: a gun.
Ann-Marie
Saccurato traced her purchase to the night she was eating dinner at a sidewalk
restaurant not long ago in Delray Beach, Fla., when a Black Lives Matter march
passed and her mind began to wander.
It
takes only one person to incite a riot when emotions are high, she remembers
thinking. What if the police are overpowered and can’t control the crowd?
Ashley
Johnson, in Austin, Texas, worries about the images she’s seen in past weeks of
armed militias showing up to rallies and making plans to kidnap governors. The
outcome of the election, she thinks, will be devastating for some people
regardless of the winner. “Maybe I’m just looking at the news too much, but there are hints of civil war
depending on who wins,” Ms. Johnson said. “It’s a lot to process.”
In
America, spikes in gun purchases are often driven by fear. But in past years
that anxiety has centered on
concerns that politicians will pass stricter gun controls. Mass
shootings often prompt more gun sales for that reason, as do elections of
liberal Democrats.
Many
gun buyers now are saying they are motivated by a new destabilizing sense that
is pushing even people who had considered themselves anti-gun to buy weapons
for the first time — and people who already have them to buy more.
The
nation is on track in 2020 to stockpile at record rates, according to groups
that track background checks from F.B.I. data. Across the country, Americans
bought 15.1 million guns in the seven months this year from March through
September, a 91 percent leap from the same period in 2019, according to
seasonally adjusted firearms sales estimates from
The Trace, a nonprofit news organization that focuses on gun issues. The F.B.I. has
also processed more background checks for gun purchases in just the
first nine months of 2020 than it has for any previous full year, F.B.I. data
show.
F.B.I.
data shows sales spiked earlier this year
as virus fears spread. And sharp increases in sales are seemingly
occurring everywhere: The states with the lowest jump in sales in September,
for example, were Alaska and North Dakota, each up about one-third compared
with September 2019. States with the largest gains included Michigan, up 198
percent over September 2019, and New Jersey, up 180 percent, according to
estimates
It’s difficult to know exactly who is
buying guns at any certain time in
America. Gun shop owners, gun rights groups and gun lobbying groups said they
were now selling more weapons than usual to Black shoppers, and to women in
particular, and more weapons to first-time gun owners generally.
“The
year 2020 has been just one long advertisement for why someone may want to have
a firearm to defend themselves,” said Douglas Jefferson, the vice president for
the National African American Gun Association, which has
seen the biggest increase in membership this year since the group was formed in
2015.
The
influx of new guns in American homes is troubling at a time when many people
are under incredible stress over jobs and spikes in coronavirus cases, said Kris Brown, who is
president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence and who noted that
suicide and domestic violence are on the rise.
On
the issue of gun control, the divide has long been partisan. Concealed-carry
laws, bans on high-capacity magazines, and allowing teachers to carry guns at
school have
split many Republicans from Democrats. A Pew
Research Center survey in 2017 found that Republicans and
independents who lean Republican were more than twice as likely as Democrats
and independents who lean Democratic to own a gun.
But
when it comes to gun ownership there’s something uniquely American that cuts
across party affiliation and social boundaries — leaving liberals and
conservatives jostling for ammunition because they want to brace for whatever
comes next.
“This is a giant
room of ‘you never know,’” said Bert Davis, looking around at people streaming
inside a convention hall in Virginia to peruse weaponry earlier this month at
the Nation’s Gun Show, one of the biggest events of its kind.
A
human resources worker for the city of Richmond, Va., Mr. Davis had come to the
show with his sister Toni Jackson, who had been having difficulty finding
9-millimeter ammunition at local gun shops; they were all sold out.
At
the show, gleaming golden rounds were on sale by the thousands.
“Everybody
is arming themselves against their neighbor,” Ms. Jackson said, looking out at
the diverse lot of fellow shoppers, some pushing strollers and wheelchairs, one
in a Black Lives Matter mask, one in a in Keep America Great mask, and a line
for background checks that snaked along the room. “This feeds the separatism of
the country.”
Ms.
Jackson bought her first gun about three years ago, a small .380 caliber
handgun, because her property management job required her to handle large
amounts of cash. Recently she put a down payment on a more powerful
9-millimeter pistol that she thinks will offer better protection.
“What’s
going on in the country right now, I’m afraid to be out by myself as a Black
woman,” Ms. Jackson said, describing unrest in her city of Richmond and beyond.
“There are a lot of people not necessarily excited that Confederate monuments
have been taken down.”
Other shoppers said
they bought a weapon because they were scared that calls to defund the police
would be heeded. Some said they were scared of the police. Some were scared
that Joseph R. Biden Jr. would become president. Others were scared of four
more years of President Trump.
Don Woodson was overseeing the Trojan Arms and Tactical table of dozens of
9-millimeter black, pink and Tiffany turquoise semiautomatic guns. He estimated
70 percent of his sales at the show were to new gun owners, many of whom told
him that they are afraid of rioters.
“People
who never ever would have had guns before,” he said. “Now, they’re looking for
security.”
Two
aisles away was Larry Burns, wearing a Keep America Great mask and a Trump 2020
T-shirt. He said he would take action if he saw protesters getting out of
control.
“If
they start hurting people, I’m going to hurt back,” said Mr. Burns, who owns
two shotguns. “I’ve lived my life. I’ll sacrifice for my grandkids.”
The
uncertainty in the aisles at the gun show is what Charrie DeRosa hears at her
private range in Palm Beach County, Fla.
“Every
person who comes in says I don’t know what’s happening in the world,” said Ms.
DeRosa, who offers gun safety training. “People are just nervous and they’re
looking for some kind of security. ”
It’s
a feeling that was weighing on Ms. Saccurato’s mind when she was eating dinner
and the Black Lives Matter march passed by.
She
had seen news reports of violence breaking
out in cities as protesters gathered. She understood why people were marching
and thought George Floyd’s death was horrific. But the violence that followed,
the damage, the rage at police officers, she said, “was even more disgusting.”
Ms. Saccurato, 43, who trains athletes for a living, is white and has friends
in law enforcement. They are good people, she said, and they are not getting
the respect they deserve.
“They’re being put in situations where they can’t handle things as efficiently
and effectively as they want,” Ms. Saccurato said. “And if that’s happening to
them, where does that put me?”
Watching
the marchers that evening, she decided it was time to get a license and buy a gun. Her new weapon: a Sig Sauer p365-XL 9
millimeter pistol.
Ms.
Johnson did not grow up in a house with guns. About
a year ago she moved to Austin, which she considered a bold step for someone
who had never lived apart from her family in North Carolina.
“I
saw it firsthand,” she said.
After
Mr. Floyd was killed by the police in
May, Ms. Johnson decided to take part in protests that were sweeping the
nation. The single march she attended this summer was in broad daylight, but
she was anxious.
“I
wholeheartedly understand wanting to protect your business,” she said, of the
people who condemn property damage at protests. “As a Black person I’m like, a
broken window versus a life?”
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