For months now, citizens have heard advice about preparing for the year 2000.Stock up on water, gasoline and cash,
people said. Just what are people buying to prepare?
In Rowan County, gun sales seem to
be rising only because of regular holiday purchases, David Allen, owner of Granite
Gunworks, said.
Reports surfaced that Dec. 23,
marked record gun sales in North Carolina, but Allen thinks most of the purchases were
just Christmas presents.
“The economy is doing real
good, and the types of guns we sold were .22s and hunting rifles,” Allen said.
“I would associate people worried about Y2K with purchasing semi-automatic type
stuff.”
Weapons permits, a measure of
handgun purchases, reached a six-month high this month, with the Rowan County
Sheriff’s Department issuing 356 permits.
But Allen doesn’t think
citizens are as worried about the new year as they were six months ago.
“People who wanted to be
prepared bought their ammunition a year or six months ago,” he said. “Contrary
to liberal belief, most gun people are not nut cases thinking the world is going to end.
Most purchases are sportsmen who have guns for hunting or target practice.”
Sheriff George Wilhelm used to run
a gun dealership. “November and December were always the biggest months for
sales,” he said this week.
Gun sales must not be too
demanding. The Fallout Shelter Gun Shop, in Woodleaf, is closed Dec. 24 until Jan 2, and
the manager of gun sales at Ron’s Sporting Goods in Kannapolis is on vacation.
PMS Firearms Etc., was busy
Wednesday afternoon, but a person who answered the phone said half the employees were home
sick.
Concealed weapons permits have
slowed since September, with the Sheriff’s Department issuing only two in November.
So what warnings have people taken
seriously in the turning of the new year?
Grocery stores have brought in
pallets of water to prepare for any emergency rush, and the checkout lines are staying
busy most of the day.
Paul Bernhardt, owner of Bernhardt
Hardware in downtown Salisbury, said he sold out of kerosene heaters by 11 a.m. Wednesday.
“Most say, ‘I don’t
think anything is going to happen, but I want to be prepared.’ We were surprised to
death about the kerosene heaters selling,” Bernhardt said.
“This morning, a woman from
Kannapolis called desperate for a heater. She said all of them in Kannapolis had been
sold,” Bernhardt said.
The store sold 30 or 35 heaters
Wednesday, not quite the record the store met three years ago when most people were
without power for over three days. “We sold about 120 that Sunday,” Bernhardt
said.
Bernhardt has since restocked with
15 to 18 more heaters. “It’s like a sled when it snows,” he explained.
“You can have hundreds of them in stacks and when it snows, you look down and
they’re all gone.”
His patrons are also stocking up
on extra kerosene bottles, kerosene heater repair parts, flashlights and flashlight
batteries. “Lamp oil is also selling real well,” Bernhardt said.
“Last spring the demand for
generators was real serious when everyone started talking about preparing,” Bernhardt
said. But the generators cost $600 to $1,000, and most people aren’t that worried
about Y2K problems.
A rental manager at Mercer
Equipment said all 10 generators at the store have been booked for the holiday weekend.
“That’s attributed to
Y2K,” the manager said. “Usually we only have a few on hand.”
The generators rent for $50 to $70
a day. The manager, who didn’t want to give his name, didn’t notice a run on
other equipment that might indicate people are concerned.
“We had a pretty good jump
when the hurricanes came through, we sold eight to 10 generators the day before the
storm,” he said. |
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