HUNTSVILLE, Ala. — 2020 was a year for the books, especially when it comes to gun sales.
Whether it was due to the election or the pandemic, last year millions of people became first-time gun owners, which helped contribute to an ammo shortage.
"With 2020 and everything that came across not only were gun buyers, or already gun owners buying more guns but what was really fantastic was all the first-time gun buyers, something like five to six million new gun owners," said Louis Southard, general manager at Bullet & Barrel.
Buying a gun and buying ammo go hand in hand but with a shortage of ammo, gun owners are finding shelves empty.
"Whether or not the supply has been strong or not, the demand is absolutely there," said Southard.
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Alongside the extreme spike in demand for ammo, this lack of supply is partly because production everywhere has slowed down due to factories responsibly following CDC guidelines.
"A lot of these factories that made ammo had to abide by all the coronavirus restrictions, any factory would have to abide by and whether that's social distancing or quarantining entire lines of people on the manufacturing line. Unfortunately, it was just kind of one of the reasons it was slowing down," said Southard.
Although the supply of ammo is down, the demand for firearms training is up.
"In 2020, one of the biggest growth areas of the business has been training and it was just so refreshing to see that because people understand that training is so important to go with the purchasing of a handgun because it's one of those things to where if you cannot use it effectively, then how do you expect to use it. You know we have the right to keep and bear arms but also having the knowledge to use them is crucial and getting quality instruction makes all the difference," said Southard.