Gun Sales Reportedly Spike Following Aurora Theater Shooting Tragedy

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The Denver Post reports that background checks for people wanting to buy guns in Colorado spiked by more than 41 percent since the Aurora, Colo., movie theater shooting that left 12 people dead and dozens more injured. Coloradan firearms instructors say they've seen increased interest in the training programs required for a concealed-carry permit.

'A lot of it is people saying, 'I didn't think I needed a gun, but now I do,' ' the worker said. 'When it happens in your backyard, people start reassessing ' 'Hey, I go to the movies.''

The Post reports that between Friday and Sunday the Colorado Bureau of Investigation approved background checks for 2,887 people who wanted to purchase a firearm. That's a 43 percent increase over the previous weekend and a 39 percent jump over the first weekend of July.

The biggest single-day was the Friday of the shooting, when there were reportedly 1,216 checks ' a 43 percent increase over the average number of the previous two Fridays.

It is common for gun sales and requested background checks to spike immediately following a mass shooting. In 2010, after Jared Loughner allegedly gunned down six people and injured others in Tucson, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, background checks in Arizona reportedly jumped 60 percent from one year earlier. A similar spike was experienced in 2007 after the shootings at Virginia Tech University in 2007 left 32 people dead.

[h/t The Denver Post]

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• and that's what happens when people are barraged by all this anti-gun legislation frenzy coming from the media and politicians.

• Libertarians get jealous when one of their fellows hogs the spotlight.

• Someone shoots people with a gun. Scared people run out to buy guns. What a cycle. A win/win for manufacturers and distributors of firearms.

• Those with a brain, know the cycle is we have a tragedy and the left starts screaming about that pesky 2nd Amendment before the bodies have even been removed from the scene.  They also know that criminals will always be able to get a weapon no matter what the law is, so the liberal solution leaves the criminals armed and innocent civilians unable to defend themselves. .

• 'Yeeee Haaaww!!!

  A massive win for gun makers that just goes round and round and round. Everyone should have a gun and we do. We're the most armed country in the world.
  'Fantastic statistics and only tell part of the impressive story.

  'U.S. citizens own 270 million of the world's 875 million known firearms, according to the Small Arms Survey 2007 by the Geneva-based Graduate Institute of International Studies.'

  'Impressive!

  http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/08/28/us-world-firearms-idUSL2834893820070828

• Really? Because I've not seen a lot of mass murders using a bazooka. The idea that if you take really dangerous weapons out of the hands of criminals, that they'll get them anyway, is ridiculous. Sure, it MAY happen ' but why not make it as difficult as possible for them to get their hands on weapons of mass murder as opposed to the system we have right now which makes it as easy as possible?