It's been a little over a week since President Obama called on Congress to ban military-style assault weapons and high capacity magazines. Since then, guns have been flying off store shelves. This weekend in Wausau, a firearms show boasted a record turnout with Saturday's attendance alone estimated to be between 1,800 and 2,500 people. Robert Pucci, the Wausau show organizer, said attendance is triple what it was before the tragedy at Sandy Hook. One attendee told NewsChannel 7 that his friend had to wait in line at a gun show in Fond du Lac because the show was just that crowded.
Attendance is not the only thing going up at these shows, so are prices. Especially prices on guns legislators propose to ban, like ARs. Automatic rifles usually sell for around $800 or $900. Their current list price is up to more than $2,000.
Even if you can afford one, there's no guarantee you'll get it with demand far greater than many distributors supply. Pucci says this is not the first time the gun industry has seen this.
"We saw this same thing when they did the initial assault rifle ban when George Bush one was President and we had that first 10 year ban. The same thing happened again. You couldn't find nothing, prices went sky high, people became paranoid and the assault rifle ban did absolutely nothing," Pucci told NewsChannel 7.
Pucci added that if Congress does pass these bans along with expanded background checks, smaller gun shows and individual collectors will likely suffer.
