NYT columnist predicts soaring firearms sales amid coronavirus outbreak will lead to more murders and suicides

The veteran columnist shared a New York Times story reporting an uptick in the sales of guns and ammunition in stores across the country in recent weeks.

“We attribute it mainly to the virus scare,” said Larry Hyatt, a gun shop owner in North Carolina, who told the Times he has seen sales increase 30% to 40% since late February. “People have a little lack of confidence that if something big and bad happens, that 911 might not work. We saw it with Katrina.”

David Liu, the owner of Arcadia Firearm & Safety in San Gabriel Valley, California, told Newsweek he had seen 10 times more customers since the COVID-19 virus outbreak began.

“One example is on March 3 and 4, I had 50 plus people come in here to take their firearms safety test and every one of them bought a gun. That’s quite unusual for my small shop,” Liu said.

Liu said many of the people coming in to buy guns are of Asian descent.

“They’re all coming in because the media is telling them that Asians are being targeted, Chinese are being targeted,” he said.

Ammunition suppliers have said they are also seeing an increase in sales since fears of the virus rapidly spreading have begun. Ammo.com told the Times it recorded two-thirds more transactions in the 11 days after Feb. 22.

Over the weekend, a photo of a line outside a gun shop in Los Angeles went viral on social media.

So far, more than 3,400 cases of the virus in the United States have been reported, including 68 deaths, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.