Clovis gun sales jump in response to school shooting

Gun shop sales have increased sharply in the Clovis area in response to events surrounding the Newtown, Conn., school shooting tragedy, local gun shop owners say.

Just this week, owners said, sales of firearms and ammunition have soared. While some of the increase is due to the Christmas season, most of the jump in sales is a response to events surrounding the shooting deaths of 26 people, 20 of them children in Newtown on Dec. 14, according to gun shop owners.

"We sold out of just about everything," said David Cresap, owner of the Crosshair Gun Shop in Clovis. Sales of automatic rifles, ammunition and magazines have been especially brisk since the school tragedy in Connecticut.

Tony Bullocks: CNJ staff photo

Larry Reeves, left, owner of R & S Gun Shop in Clovis explains Thursday to Mike DeGroot of Pleasant Hill the features of a AR-15, which is a semi-automatic weapon. Reeves said the AR-15 is not a assault rifle.

Larry Reeves, an owner of the R & S Gun Shop in Clovis, said, "I hate the reason for it, but we're really doing well." Handgun and rifle sales have been especially good, he said.

Ricardo Gonzalez, owner of Mavric Sport and Tactical LLC, said his sales started accelerating rapidly after President Obama's speech about the incident on Tuesday. The president's pledge to "do something" about the situation, he said Wednesday, prompted his customers to start buying. Sales have been especially strong, he said, in ammunition and in semi-automatic weapons including AR 15s, .308-caliber rifles, among others, that hold higher amounts of ammunition in their magazines.

Bo Beaulieu, an owner of the Beaulieu Brothers Pawn Shop, said the shop's gun section started doing unusually high volume business on Tuesday, too. The best seller, he said, was the AR-15.

Portales Police Chief C. Doug Jones conceded that under present federal and state law, gun buyers are acting completely within the law.

"Shotguns and hunting rifles I don't have a problem with," Jones said. "Assault rifles I do have a problem with them getting into the wrong hands."

Clovis Police Chief Steve Sanders said that while the apparent run on assault rifles might be an over-reaction, it just means people are trying to make sure they are exercising their rights to own them before new laws are enacted.

Concern that the Newtown school shootings may bring new restrictions on gun sales, the owners agreed, sparked the spike in gun sales.

The owners themselves oppose new gun restrictions.

Gonzalez said his customers are concerned about losing the right to keep and bear arms written into the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Cresap said he disapproves of new gun restrictions, largely because "they don't enforce the laws we have." Most of his customers he said are "conscientious sportsmen" who use their guns for hunting and "responsible shooting."

Beaulieu agreed, saying laws restricting guns, like those against drugs and drunk driving, have not been adequately enforced in the first place.

New laws are also likely to be ineffective, Cresap added, because "there's no cure for stupid."