All About Hoarding Ammo
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If you watch FOX News, as I do, you’ve no doubt seen the ads for gold and silver coins and bars that will keep you from disaster when the currency crashes and society collapses into chaos. Maybe. I have a vision of trying to swap a Krugerrand for a case of canned soup, and being turned down.
“What the hell am I going to do with that?” the guy with the soup will say.
On the other hand, ammo will be a highly useful medium of exchange both for getting soup and keeping other people from taking it.
I think we can agree that whoever wins the next presidential election will be a disaster, albeit for differing reasons, and we will slide a bit closer to anarchy than we are now, or go all the way to total chaos. Don’t think it can’t happen. The U.S. is only semi-functional now.
Even if we escape the cataclysm, if Hillary wins it’s going to be open season on guns and gun owners, and who knows what may come in the way of legislation. In New York State, which passed its unenforceable and mostly-uncomplied-with SAFE act in 2013, two of its legislators who have not gone to prison—State Senator Roxanne Persaud and Assemblywoman Jo Anne Simon—have proposed a bill that would limit ammunition purchases to twice the capacity of a gun owner’s firearm within a 90-day period. In other words, if your 1911 holds eight rounds, you get to buy 16 rounds every three months.
The stated purpose of this is to keep shooters from acquiring the large amounts of ammunition necessary for a massacre.
Ridiculous? Of course. Unenforceable? You bet. But when has that mattered? The micro-engraved bolt-face idea refuses to die as long as there are legislators stupid enough to buy into it.
My favorite ammo hoarding story comes from the late Jeff Cooper. After he had founded GunSite, he lucked into a stupendous deal on rifle ammo—I think it was 7.62mm—and ordered a bunch of it. The UPS truck arrived, its axles groaning under the weight. The driver offloaded however many pallets there were and asked, “Isn’t this an awful lot of ammunition, Mister Cooper?”
Jeff smiled sweetly and said, “Well, deer season begins tomorrow.”