While, in general, there were no "shortages" as we see today after Kennedy's assassination in 1963 and those of Kenndy and MLK in 1968, there was an impact on the world of firearms and firearms ownership. In the months following November 1963 the left wing Democrats immediately proposed all sorts of legislation to "fix the problem". The volume of proposed legislation at the federal, state, county and municiple level was too much to keep up with. Every month the NRA publishe a leglislative alert in the American Rifleman. That section went from a few columns to several pages. Democrats proposed legislation to do everything from abolish the sale of "mail order firearms" to registration of all firearms and firearms owners to the total abolition of privately owned firearms. From late 1963 into 1964, there was no "shortage" because the number of distributors and sellers was so large that if one supplier ran out, there were always others. In early 1964 you could still walk into a F.W. Woolworth's and find barrels of surplus rifles in the "hobby department" in at least some states. Some of the distributors that had a large mail order business, saw the handwriting on the Democrat wall and begin to divest of inventory, largely by selling to other distributors. Some distributors in bastions of Democrat tyranny like New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. slowly began to sell down inventory in the hope that they could relocate to a more friendly state or city (unfortunately almost none did). LBJ saw all of this as a chance to "buy" the black vote. He began pushing the Civil Rights Act to senators with the words, "if you gone along with me on this thing, we can have the (n-word) vote for the next fifty years." There are several documentaries with the recording of him saying this both from the White House and Air Force One, but the Democrats will deny it exists and call it a myth. With regard to pistols, "normal" people didn't carry handguns. In fact, a lot of police, especially small town police didn't even carry a firearm. People didn't even lock the doors on their cars or houses! Handguns were something that the veteran next door had brought back from the war, Grandpa Fred kept in a nightstand next to the bed or the fellow down the street had because he was a compeitition shooter. Yes, there were others, like the kid down the street who sold flower seeds and Christmas cards door to door so he could buy a .22 rifle or pistol, and there were the collectors who met in groups such as the Ohio Gun Collectors Assoc. or the National Muzzleloading Rifle Assoc. to buy, sell and trade in their areas of interest. Then, as 1964 turned into 1965, the situation began to calm down.
1968 changed all that! The same tired, old tyrannical Democrats got all fired up and "demanded" changes. In their minds and words, the assassinations "proved they were right all along." No, there wasn't the social media that we have today, but the major networks spread the word as fast as they could "guns and gun owners were bad," they needed to be "dealth with and controlled." As the networks cranked up the volume about the nasty, vile, vicious, bloodthirsty (yes, they used all of those terms and more) gun owners, small select groups saw the opportunity to pile on and riot. The riots of 1968 were largely driven by a relatively small group of extremists who were well financed -- just like today but Soros has lots more money. They came to town with all the equipment needed to spark a riot -- police band radios, walkie-talkies, bull horns, pre printed signs. Then there was a huge increase in sales. I was only a boy, but I was working in a gunsmith's shop. He specialized mainly in custom hunting rifles, and we generally saw fewer than a dozen customers a week. Suddenly, there was a line at the door of dozens of people asking about buying a handgun. He went from selling a few handguns a year to selling hundreds a week. Once again, there were lots of distributiors so there didn't seem to be a problem on the wholesale end. At that time there were still salesmen coming around from the distributors and even the manufacturers to take orders and even make deliveries. Groups like OGCA, which limited attendance to membership and guests saw the numbers move up dramatically. The NRA saw a large increase in membership. Many stores, most notably Sears, JC Penny's, stopped selling firearms overnight, which put additional pressure on the small independent shops. The Democrat demand for action was stronger, louder, and more vicious than ever. The major networks all produced documentaries about the "problem with guns" that cast every gun owner as a wild-eyed killer, out to murder everyone who disagreed with them, particularly those in "minority communities." All of that whipped up the fever again and there was a second wave of riots, which contributed even more to the demand for firearms, and the situation simply kept escalating. The situation began to calm down by late summer, but especially with the onset of the Democrat convention in Chicago in August. It was as if the Democrats turned a switch and the riots stopped. It was clear that they were not about to allow riots in "their town" on national tv, but the tv networks didn't get the message so the networks portrayed a few hundred protestors and professional left-wing lunatics as if there were thousands and thousands rioting all over Chicago. Once again, that pushed gun sales to new records. The little shop were I worked was beginning to have trouble getting quality firearms and began selling the cheaper imports from Spain and Italy. But it was nothing like it is now. Last week, I walked into a local range (Point Blank), just to see how things were. They usually carry a couple of hundred models of hand and long guns, but that day there were less than a dozen for sale. Interestingly, there were two guys on the range in BLM tee-shirts with shotguns sawed off at the end of the feed tube -- not even sawed of square! I spoke with an employee about that and a few minutes later the manager told me to leave.
