In the lead up to and the aftermath of the grand jury decision in Michael Brown’s case in Ferguson, MO, gun sales skyrocketed and gun training courses booked up. People who live in the predominantly white St. Louis suburbs, up to 30 miles away from Ferguson, bought guns and got training to use them for fear that the protests in Ferguson would turn violent and affect them and their family. Many of these people are first-time gun-owners.
see this on the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange and also on The Atlantic
“Wow, that’s a really emotional one.”
“That’s one of the main points of this drill, you did right right off the bat, well done well done…So, Randy snuck out on you, what did you do?”
“I shot him!”
“Why?”
“Because my kids are in here!”
“That’s what training’s about to figure out what’s the best solution to this scenario.”
“Gotta know your target! You know my dad said, you know you can’t pull that bullet back, you better know your target.”
“That’s right…”
“Civilian response to armed confrontation, we acronym it CRAC, it’s a matter of being in a simulated deadly force scenario without actually have to go through a deadly force scenario and knowing what your reaction is going to be if you’re ever dumped in one of those situations.”
“There’s a lot of people concerned with the whole situation in Ferguson that with police resources are drawn to specific areas it’s going to lead to extended response times to be able to get to their homes or their vehicles to get to wherever they are. They really feel that there’s a likelihood that they’ll have to defend themselves rather than rely on police protection. So, it’s important to them to not only just be in possession of this firearm but be able to operate it as well.”
“With Ferguson, I think it defienitely raised a lot of peoples’ sense of awareness, heightened it, tons of people are buying guns now like they haven’t before. But part of that is training so that the first time you use the gun isn’t a life or death situation.”
“We’ve seen an exponential increase in sales. To say that we’re a 600% above in firearm sales compared to last year would probably be accurate. It’s hard to even track how much it is because each day we track is higher than it was the day before.”
“This is the glock 42, it’s one of the hottest models that’s out right now. We’ve sold well over100 of these in the last 2 weeks, as fast as we can get them in. They’re a very small compacted gun and a lot of people are carrying them, again with conceal and carry, they don’t have a tremendous amount of recoil and people are able to handle them. This is the glock section, what’s left of it. Pretty much anything that’s a smaller frame. In big surges that we’ve had in the past, either a Sandy Hook thing or a Newtown type thing, a lot of times it’s people who have firearms experience, and there’s just a gun they’ve always wanted and they’re afraid it’ll go away so they come in and they surge buy at those points. This doesn’t have that feel at all. These are people who 2 years ago would’ve never considered having a gun, would’ve never considered having a gun in their home. It’s definitely a different customer coming in for the first time.”
more info:
Watch this and learn more at the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange
The death of 17-year-old Michael Brown at the hands of police officer Darren Wilson in many ways transformed Ferguson, Mo.; St. Louis and the nation. In the wake of the controversial shooting on Aug. 9, 2014, some took to the streets. Others headed for gun stores.
A wave of protesters, many of them young and black, armed themselves with social media savvy and the perseverance to be out on the streets for weeks on end. They were decrying a criminal justice system that tickets, arrests and imprisons them at rates far higher than that of their white peers. They staked out the Ferguson police department; they laid on the pavement; they flooded local malls; they marched through the streets proclaiming their lives matter, too.
A minority of those protesters looted and burned businesses on the West Florissant commercial strip in Ferguson in the night of rage that followed the announcement that Officer Wilson would not be indicted.
In response to the unrest, others in the St. Louis metro area were arming themselves in the literal sense. The bare walls of gun stores and skyrocketing gun sales were evidence of this. Some gun stores reported a 600 percent increase in gun sales when compared to the same time the year prior. Applications for concealed carry permits that enable Missourians to carry a firearm in public rose 250 percent.
Many of them were first-time gun owners.
“A lot of people who two years ago would have never considered having a gun now feel that it’s important that they defend themselves,” said Paul Bastean, a police officer in Lake Saint Louis, Mo., and the owner of Ultimate Defense Firing Range and Training Center. “It’s definitely a different tone, different climate, different customer coming in for the first time.”
The Training Center is a beneficiary of that boom in business. It is located in St. Peter’s, Mo., a mostly white suburb of St. Louis that feels more rural than urban. It is located 30 miles west of Ferguson.
The firing range not only sells more firearms than ever since the death of Michael Brown but there’s been unprecedented demand for its gun safety courses, too.
One particular course, Civilian Response to Armed Confrontation, gives participants the simulated experience of being in an armed conflict such as a home raid or a convenience store robbery.
“With Ferguson, I think that definitely raised a lot of people’s sense of awareness, heightened it,” said Jonathon Tock, 19, a teenager from the St. Louis area who hopes to become a police officer. “Tons of people are buying guns and different things now that they’ve never done before.”
nydailynews.com/news/national/gun-sales-surge-jury-ferguson-decision-article-1.2016101
theweek.com/speedreads/index/272248/speedreads-gun-sales-in-missouri-are-booming-thanks-to-the-impending-ferguson-decision
nbcnews.com/storyline/michael-brown-shooting/gun-sales-surge-st-louis-suburbs-ahead-jurys-ferguson-decision-n251431