Rep. Paul's way of thinking on a more domestic front was apparently in play immediately after the Sept. 11 terror, reminding us -- to a degree -- of gun arguments past.
On that Tuesday and a day or so after, firearms and ammunition sales enjoyed what Hammond calls a "a major spike" in sales. The firearm industry's trade organization, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, has called the sales increase "slight" and only among certain dealers in certain states, like New York and Connecticut.
Some gun dealers were actually concerned that there would be a spike, one rooted in irrationality and panic. Wary of a run on guns made in the heat of the horror, executives at Kmart Corp. made the immediate decision on Sept. 11 to remove all ammunition and firearms from the sales floors in all their stores -- a decision that a Kmart spokeswoman described as "a precautionary safety measure," albeit one that the chain overturned the next day.
Another firearm dealer, Denver-based sports chain Gart Sports, also temporarily suspended gun sales immediately after the attack after executives saw ammo sales in their Texas and Colorado stores go through the roof that Tuesday morning. "We sell firearms for the sportsman and the sportswoman and are not at all interested in fueling irrational acts," Doug Morton, Gart Sports president and CEO, said at the time.
Gun control advocates point to the three possible hate crime homicides committed against Americans who appear Middle Eastern in the wake of the tragedy, all of which were committed with firearms.
In Mesa, Ariz., a gas station owner and Sikh immigrant named Balbir Singh Sodhi was allegedly shot by a man who also allegedly fired upon a gas station owned by a man of Lebanese descent and upon the home of an Afghan family. In Dallas, Waqar Hasan, a Pakistani Muslim store owner was shot to death, as was an Egyptian Christian grocery store owner named Adel Karas, in Los Angeles. It has not been officially determined yet whether any of these crimes were racially or ethnically motivated, though FBI director Robert Mueller has said that the three shootings are being investigated along with 40 or so other possible hate crimes.
Asked about the three U.S. gun deaths that occurred in the tragedy's wake, Hammond said, "My guess would be that there were dozens, hundreds of incidents of the use of firearms" since Tuesday, Sept. 11, "and 100- to 200- or a thousand-to-one were used to avert crimes rather than commit crimes."
In addition, on Saturday, in Spotsylvania, Va., a 3-year-old boy, Kyle Phillips, fatally shot himself with a handgun that his father brought into the house for protection after the terrorist attacks. The Spotsylvania County Sheriff's Department told reporters that the handgun had been hanging on a window curtain rod above Kyle's bed.
It was this last incident that propelled Sarah Brady, chairwoman of the Brady Center, to issue the reminder "that a gun in the home is far more likely to be used to kill or injure a loved one than to be used in self-defense." Brady urged those who choose to buy a gun to keep it locked up and stored out of the reach of children.
Hammond argued that the media only publicizes the times that guns are used improperly rather than when they're used in self-defense, which he says happens somewhere between 1.5 million and 2.5 million times a year. Asked if he could name one such time since Sept, 11, he said, "not off the top of my head," but that next month's American Riflemen was sure to have examples.
About the writer
Jake Tapper is Salon's Washington correspondent and the author of "Down and Dirty: The Plot to Steal the Presidency."
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