As Gun Sales increase so do Wildlife Funds

Obama has been fittingly referred to as "Gun salesman of the year", and those sales not only make their legal and responsible buyers safer, but they also benefit Michigan wildlife.

The Detroit Free Press:
In record numbers, Guns and ammo fly off shelves
Michigan expects record $17M in taxes from sales

The continued high-volume sale of guns and ammunition nationwide in the last year will lead to a big increase in funds for wildlife habitat and management across the country, including Michigan.

A federal tax collected on firearms and ammunition sales is redistributed to wildlife and hunting programs in each state, and only three -- Alaska, Texas and Pennsylvania -- get more money than the $17 million Michigan is expecting this year: $6 million more than last year's record.

With budget cuts and the coming merger of the state's departments of natural resources and environmental quality, the extra bucks will come in handy.

Besides funding hunter education and wildlife management, the tax is used to lease land from farmers to give hunters access and to operate the state's 128 game and wildlife areas.

Because Michigan has so many hunters and so much natural land set aside for hunting and wildlife it gets a nice portion of the excise tax.

Of course a lot of these purchases aren't for hunting:

One reason for the rush is that many gun owners thought the election of President Barack Obama would usher in a new call for gun restrictions. Another is the popularity of concealed-weapon permits, like those in Michigan, that allow owners to keep firearms in purses or glove boxes if they have a permit. And there's also the broadening of the state law that allows people to defend themselves with deadly force, even outside their own homes.

Guns are no longer taboo. Single moms, college students and even older women are buying them and learning how to use them, McMahon said.

Given Obama's record on supporting over-the-top gun control including bans on ownership, combine it with a Democrat majority in the House and Senate and its no wonder people are stocking up while they can. I'm betting the Democrats will try to sneak some gun control laws including outright bans through between the 2010 Congressional elections and the 2012 Presidential election.

Sadly, the Detroit Free Press misses a great opportunity to point out that this massive increase in firewarms purchases has not led to "blood in the streets", the "return of the OK Corral", or any other of the many canards of the media and gun banning movement. One can't have everything, and the article was decidedly less anti-gun than many a Free Press article has been in the past, so there is still hope for continued improvement.