Anyone know when the best sales week for Twinkies cakes ever recorded was? The week after it was announced they were no longer going to be produced because Hostess was filing for bankruptcy. Every store in America sold completely out of Twinkies that week. Soon people were selling them on eBay and getting $60 or more a box! Panicked Twinkie lovers and even people who hadn’t eaten one of the cakes since childhood were scrambling to get their hands on them before they were gone forever. People who had never eaten a Twinkie in their life felt like they had to get their hands on a box or forever miss the opportunity. That was in 2012 and of course in 2013 the beloved snack cakes once again returned to the shelves. All that panic and scrambling for the last box ever the previous year was all for nothing.
Remind anyone of a similar phenomenon in 2013? That year saw more civilian gun and ammunition sales than any other year in history. Manufactures could not keep up with demand, stockpiles sold out overnight and of course prices went through the roof! This marked the peak of a huge period of increased gun sales and gun ownership that began when Barack Obama was elected and has continued through both his terms as President. The driving force behind this gun and ammo manufactures dream is the fear that Obama would impose sweeping weapons bans and stop the sale of guns altogether. He has never made it a secret that he would in fact love to do just that. He also made it clear that he has no qualms about bypassing Congress and invoking executive orders. He has a tendency to impose his will whether Americans wanted it or not. America reacted accordingly much to the delight of the gun industry of course. It was a glorious time to be in any gun related business.
Suddenly gun owners felt if they didn’t have at least half a million rounds of .223 and 9mm that they were exceedingly ill prepared for the upcoming SHTF scenario of choice. And of course you needed to have enough AR-15s to arm all of your foolish non gun owning neighbors. Once the safe was full it was time to start burying them in your backyard. High capacity magazines were treated like bricks of solid gold. Even people who had never even considered owning a gun before felt as if they had to have as many as they could get their hands on. Grandmothers and Yoga instructors were suddenly packing Glocks. The lowly .22 long rifle round became a form of currency. For myself being a collector of antique and vintage weapons I felt inclined to add an arsenal of modern guns to my collection. And for a while finding the modern stuff was as much a treasure hunt as finding the antiques.
Most Americans realized that disarming law abiding citizens would never do anything to deter criminals from committing acts of gun violence. If anything it would embolden would be gunmen and criminals alike to prey on the unarmed masses. I guess I just find the whole thing magnificently ironic. The one man who would love to do away with all those evil boom sticks is the very one who inspired the most prolific 8 years of gun sales ever. As Alanis Morissette said “It's like a black fly in your Chardonnay” isn’t it Mr. President? Or perhaps it’s just a gentle reminder that America is still a Democracy and not a dictatorship. "The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government" and that comes from Article 21 of the United Nation's 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights…isn’t that ironic?
