The ammunition shelves in sporting goods stores are like Mother Hubbard's cupboards — they're bare. Or nearly so. And so are the shelves of reloading components. Even tools such as reloading dies. Where they exist, sometimes the prices are sky high, and what's available are calibers that hardly anyone uses. Shooters are asking why, but there are several reasons.
Certainly one reason is the political situation we face, a President who promises executive orders that contravene the Constitution, and anti-gun House and Senate members in Washington who unfailingly preach nonsense about guns.
Take these two stunning falsehoods uttered in one breath: "An AR-15 is as heavy as 10 boxes that you would move, and they shoot .50 caliber bullets." Then there's this nonsense uttered in support of banning a safety attachment to a firearm: "A barrel shroud is that shoulder thing that goes up." And this perennial lie: "An AR-15 is a battlefield weapon that should not be in the hands of civilians!" Never mind that not a single nation in the world issues AR-15s for the battlefield. And never mind that an AR-15 is much less powerful than the typical deer rifle. (It's truly shameful. If congresscritters are as uninformed about everything they legislate as they are about firearms, we will never get common-sense laws about anything.)
Anyway, this week's column, "Shortages — My Perspective" isn't intended to tell the whole story, but it offers a little insight into the problem of ammunition shooters face right now. Let's hope it doesn't get worse.
To access more of my writing on hunting topics, go to the home page of my blog, Mission: Hunter.