Sales of guns and ammunition are soaring across the US amid the coronavirus crisis. On the west coast, long lines of customers were queueing up outside gun stores to stock up on ammunition. At the Martin B Retting gun shop in Culver City, California, the queues stretched round the block throughout the weekend.
Some of the gun store owners have termed the scenes of mass buying at their stores unprecedented. Also, gun shop owners say there is almost no interest in hunting rifles. Instead, people were opting for target guns and there was big demand for AR-15 semi-automatic assault-style rifles.
Ammo.com has put out figures for sales from 23 February to 4 March that give an indication of the scale of the surge. In that 11-day period sales increased 68% compared to the 11 days up to 23 February.
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