This mad rush of new gun buyers in the wake of the slaughter in Tucson was no surprise to Greg Wolff, owner of “Glockmeisters,” a chain of Arizona hunting supply stores. Hours after the shootings, Wolff’s businesses were mobbed with customers eager to buy the same pistol, the Glock 19, and high-capacity magazine allegedly used by Jared Loughner, the 23-year-old arrested at the scene. 

“We’re at double our volume over what we usually do,” Wolff told reporters weeks after the shooting spree. “When something like this happens people get worried that the government is going to ban stuff.”

According to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF), the government agency that licenses gun shops, sales of handguns in Arizona jumped 60 percent during the month following the Tucson shootings. During the same period (compared with the previous year), sales jumped 65 percent in Ohio, 16 percent in California, 38 percent in Illinois, and 33 percent in New York. Nationally, the sale of firearms increased 5 percent.

Buyers also flocked to gun stores and Internet sites to buy the same type of high-capacity magazine allegedly used by Jared Loughner.  Cheaper Than Dirt!, an Internet firearms and ammunition retailer based in Fort Worth, boasts that it has experienced a huge surge in orders for pistol magazines holding more than 10 rounds, with 30-round Glock magazines leading sales. The same company also bragged that it had sold its entire inventory of Glock 19s.  

Roberta Wilson, Cheaper Than Dirt’s chief operating officer, attributes the sales surge to a law recently introduced in the Texas legislature that would ban the sale of high-capacity magazines. “It’s not unusual to see panic buying when legislation like this is introduced,” said Wilson. “Hopefully cooler heads will prevail and we’ll see this bill die in committee.”

At the Federal level, particularly at the ATF, oversight of gun sales and gun retailers will likely be scaled back due to congressional budget cuts. Washington lawmakers say the reduction in money earmarked for ATF is intended to eliminate duplicate efforts shared by other Federal agencies.  But ATF officials say the loss of money will likely translate into layoffs of personnel responsible for enforcing national firearms laws.

While Federal and state lawmakers grapple with ways to implement gun laws that balance public safety with the Constitutionally-guaranteed right of Americans to bear arms, South Dakota lawmakers have introduced legislation that would require, that’s right, every adult resident of the state to buy a firearm “sufficient to provide for their ordinary self-defense.”

The proposed law, which awaits approval by the South Dakota legislature, would give people six months to acquire a firearm after turning 21. The provision does not apply to people who are barred from owning a firearm, such as convicted felons and violent mental patients. The pending legislation does not specify what type of firearm South Dakota residents would be required to buy. Instead, the new measure merely mandates that South Dakotans would be required to choose a gun “suitable to their temperament, physical capacity, and preference.”

State Representative Hal Wick, a Republican from Sioux Falls who co-sponsored the law, says the measure “provides for an individual mandate to adult citizens to provide for the self-defense of themselves and others.”