Nothing like gun control debates to spike sales

[MajGenl.Meade]

More Americans had their backgrounds checked purchasing guns on Black Friday than any day in the on record, according to data released by the FBI this week.

The National Instant Criminal Background Check System processed 185,345 requests on Nov. 27, one of the largest retail sales days in the country.

"This was an approximate 5% increase over the 175,754 received on Black Friday 2014," wrote Stephen Fischer, the FBI's chief of multimedia productions. "The previous high for receipts were the 177,170 received on 12/21/2012."

Previous spikes for background checks, conducted before a gun buyer can obtain a firearm, occurred after prominent mass shootings, like in December 2012 in the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015 ... /76624604/

[Lord Jim]

The previous high for receipts were the 177,170 received on 12/21/2012.

Must have been gearing up for the "Mayan Doomsday"...

When the apocalypse comes, one wants to be well armed...

ETA:

I suspect that gun sales were also pretty brisk in December of 1999, as prudent folks were preparing for the world-wide disaster that was going to be brought on by the "Millennium bug"...

[oldr_n_wsr]

My wife made good money on that "millenial bug". They needed cobol programmers to fix the clocks and she knew cobol.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Except there was no problem with any clocks... so how did that work?

[oldr_n_wsr]

The computer clocks/date entry that only had two digits for the year. They were afraid that "00" would be interpreted as "1900" rather than "2000". Mostly financial institutions were very worried.
The clock chip in most computers at the time handled both the time and the date thus my use of the generic term "clock".


But you knew that.

[MajGenl.Meade]

I'm interested. Yes, I knew that you meant computer clock chips and the double digit problem. My question was too vague. What I wanted to know was, since nothing happened at all, how did your wife make money on it? She didn't have to fix anything.

I remember that consultants were thick on the ground before the non-event happened, offering dire warnings and advice. But AFAICR they didn't actually "do" anything. There was no re-programming going on before the "nothing at all happened" moment was there?

[rubato]

They weren't hired to sit around and wait for things to go wrong they were hired to fix the software in advance of the event, which is how they were employed. Whether disaster was averted by their efforts or was never going to occur I cannot say. They paid a lot to get people out of retirement who knew the old programming languages and operating systems.


yrs,
rubato

[oldr_n_wsr]

What I wanted to know was, since nothing happened at all, how did your wife make money on it? She didn't have to fix anything.

Nothing happened because it was "fixed" (the tech term at the time was "patched") before Y2K come to be.

as rubato said:

Whether disaster was averted by their efforts or was never going to occur I cannot say.

There was a concern that all the places a date was logged or used or recorded were not uncovered but the overall patches seemed to take care of those even if they still only used two digits for a year. I think some data/accounts/files were merely flagged for human intervention if the program couldn't be sure how to correct it.

Yes it was a non event to the general public but to many, especially the financial sector, it was a big deal leading up to Y2K.

[MajGenl.Meade]

OK thank you both

[oldr_n_wsr]

OK thank you both

You are Welcome.

[dales]

They weren't hired to sit around and wait for things to go wrong they were hired to fix the software in advance of the event, which is how they were employed. Whether disaster was averted by their efforts or was never going to occur I cannot say. They paid a lot to get people out of retirement who knew the old programming languages and operating systems.


yrs,
rubato

[rubato]

Nothing like gun control debates to spike sales

Delusional paranoiacs are such easy marks.


yrs,
rubato

[wesw]

ammo has really been hard to get for years now. 22 long rifle ammo is really scarce and expensive.

I m curious, does anyone know if smokeless powder can be easily made in "the kitchen of your mother"?

and if you have a reloading machine can black powder be used to reload modern shells and bullets, say.., .22 or 12ga?

[dales]

ammo has really been hard to get for years now. 22 long rifle ammo is really scarce and expensive.

Yes, I've noticed that too, it used to be about 1 cent per shot.

I m curious, does anyone know if smokeless powder can be easily made in "the kitchen of your mother"?

Try the Anarchist's Cookbook.

and if you have a reloading machine can black powder be used to reload modern shells and bullets, say.., .22 or 12ga?

I don't believe so.....but I could be wrong.

One can reload and cast their own bullets, however....
As soon as the govt. outlaws primers, we're screwed.

[Jarlaxle]

I'm good for a while. Between my uncle and me, I think we have close to 50,000 regular primers. He's out of LRM primers, though.

Any idea where those can be had without paying a damn fortune?