Connecticut Gun Supplies Running Low as Weapon Sales Soar

Connecticut gun stores sold more than 19,400 firearms last month, an increase of 71 percent from the previous year, and guns are selling so fast in this state that some retailers are reporting dwindling supplies and waiting lists for weapons, according to a report in the Hartford Courant.

The run on guns that has kept Ron's Guns busy in East Lyme ever since the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown on Dec. 14 that killed 20 young children and 6 women who worked at the school is part of a national trend since 

At Ron's Guns, a number of people were coming in to apply for pistol permits for the first time ever, but a fair percentage of local residents already have pistol permits.

About 5.1 percent of East Lyme residents, (983 people) have gun permits; in Old Lyme, 513 people have permits, which is about 6.7 percent of the population; and in rural Lyme, 200 people have permits, which amounts to 8.3 percent of the town's population. 

Since the shootings the state has established a task force to look into the issue of gun violence and the need for gun control, and President Barack Obama also has appointed a special commission to look into the same issue.

The Newtown massacre and the call for limits on some weapons have have touched off a state and national debate on the need for gun control, with gun advocates complaining any limits would be an infringement of constitutional rights.

While gun sales are usual higher in December because of the holidays last month's sales were unusually high even for the season. They were up 53 percent over November's sales, compared to the 34 percent increase between November and December of 2011. Sales of assault-style weapons, similar to the gun Adam Lanza used when in the Newtown attacks, have been particularly brisk nationally, the newspaper states.

Connecticut Senators Richard Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, along with U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty, D-Fifth District, are said to be working together on a bill they want to introduce today that would ban such assault weapons, according to another report.