"I’m not a doomsday prepper. I’m just a normal, go-to-work, 9-to-5 person."
Ryan Laun lives with his wife and two children in a neighborhood he considers safe. He has police officers for neighbors.
But in late March, as the coronavirus pandemic was changing the way we live, the family decided to get a gun. The unsettled state of the world clinched it.
“There was nothing left in grocery stores,” said Laun, 37, who works for an insurance company. “It was just an eerie, uncertain time.”
Months later, with police-related protests and civil unrest across the country, he is even more certain about the purchase.
“I’m not a doomsday prepper. I’m just a normal, go-to-work, 9-to-5 person,” he said. Owning a gun “gives us that added comfort.”
He’s not alone.
While the government doesn’t track gun sales, FBI statistics show that 3.9 million firearm background checks were initiated in June compared to 2.3 million in June 2019. (Those numbers, while indicative, don’t represent the specific number of guns sold.)
According to a May survey of gun retailers by the industry trade association National Shooting Sports Foundation, 40 percent of customers in the first four months of 2020 were first-time buyers.
This month, the industry group estimated nearly five million new gun owners so far this year.
Read more at the Tampa Bay Times