Amid the coronavirus outbreak, gun sales across the country have been skyrocketing, with firearm shops everywhere from San Diego, where one shop owner said he was seeing sales “ten times higher” than normal, to New Jersey, where sales across the state have more than tripled, reporting major upticks in the purchasing of both guns and ammunition.
Gun shops have been allowed to remain open during the lockdowns, apparently deemed an “essential function.”
However, for Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva, the situation has got out of hand.
Speaking to FOX 11 LA, Villanueva feared the wave of people purchasing their first guns in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak could be a recipe for disaster.
“We will be closing them, they are not an essential function,” Villanueva said.
“I’m a supporter of the 2nd amendment, I’m a gun owner myself, but now you have the mixture of people that are not formerly gun owners and you have a lot more people at home.
And anytime you introduce a firearm in a home, from what I understand from CDC studies, it increases fourfold the chance that someone is gonna get shot.”
Villanueva has some serious swing as he is also the Director of Emergency Operations, meaning he is the number one person in charge during a crisis like the coronavirus. All FEMA requests go through him, and all National Guard requests go through him.