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A Port Coquitlam gun and ammunition retailer has seen an uptick in sales in recent weeks as the local realities of the COVID-19 outbreak set in.
“We’ve had a pretty massive spike in sales,” said Josh Faber, assistant manager of Tiger Arms, the only shop of its kind in the Tri-Cities.
“For the past week or so it’s been pretty insane.”
To protect the health of its employees and customers from the outbreak, the shop shut down Friday, March 21, and moved all of its sales online.
“We do pickups, but just in short windows in the morning and afternoon,” he said.
Faber was careful to note that it wasn’t just people “freaking out” about the novel coronavirus. Rather, like the recent rush on toilet paper, there’s a general sense that supply chains are struggling to keep up and that gun owners had better stock up while they can.
“While there definitely are some people who are kind of stocking up because they think something bad might happen, a lot of people are just buying because they're afraid that stock levels will drop [and] prices will rise,” he said.
Tiger Arms has already seen a surge in prices and a scarcity for certain products, something Faber attributes to a falling Canadian dollar and the spike in buying among U.S. gun owners due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
“A couple of large US ammunition manufacturers have reduced shipping and increased prices in the past week. So we're seeing generally between eight to 14% jump in pricing not even correlated with the Canadian dollar,” said Faber, adding almost all guns and ammunition come from the U.S. and any shortages there would ripple into the Canadian market.
The federal government has been taking pains to reassure Canadians that isolation and other measures aimed at curbing the spread of the virus won’t affect supply chains, but guns and ammunition are a special case. Dealers need shipment import and export permits. Supplies, primarily from the United States and Europe, can take up to six months to arrive. That’s all contributed to an “extreme surge,” not just locally, but across the whole country, according to the Canadian Press.
Compounding the boost in sales is the fact April 1 marks the opening of several hunting seasons in B.C., and because of that, Faber says there’s often an increase in sales around mid-March, virus or not.
Then, there are the rumours over the past couple of months that changes are expected to federal firearms register legislation, something that has some people worried, according to Faber.
“It’s kind of a confluence of those three things: Fear of gun confiscation, the virus and just regular hunting season,” he said.
Tiger Arms is the only gun and ammunition retailer in the Tri-Cities, and with several shooting ranges in the area, many of its customers are dedicated target shooters.
But several of the local ranges — like the Port Coquitlam & District Hunting & Fishing Club and the Pitt Meadows Gun Club — have shut down to maximize social distancing, driving people to the one range that remains open, the DVC Vancouver Gun Range on Port Coquitlam’s Broadway St.
“Business is pretty steady,” said Winston Mew of DVC. “We’re seeing customers from other ranges because those ranges have shut down.”
“We here as a business want the general public to come in,” added Mew.
When asked about whether more people were coming in since the COVID-19 outbreak began, Mew shut down the interview and asked this reporter to leave.
But for people concerned that the surge in gun sales could put them in harm's way, Faber pointed to rules that require new gun owners to go through a series of background checks lasting 45 days.
“The people who are stocking up, I mean, they these people already own guns. They've been in society for decades and decades. They haven't done anything to anyone and them having a few extra rounds of ammunition isn't really anything to worry about,” he said.
— with files from the Canadian Press
Read more of our COVID-19 coverage here.
