North Dakota, Wanna Buy A Gun? Yup.

In mid-March right before EVERYTHING SHUT DOWN, my daughter ran to the sporting goods shop in Fargo to pick up some free-weights as her gym was shutting down due to COVID.  She said the place was packed.  A couple of customers were also buying weights and everyone else was buying guns and ammunition (apparently they already had picked up toilet paper).  So you'd think the state was pretty well armed going into the pandemic.  Seems not everyone felt that way, because after the smart restart- gun sales are still soaring.

It's great to see local businesses thrive in such a time of economic adversity.  Mandan Sporting Goods is a great example of how you win with customer service and product knowledge. While so many retail stores are slowly re-entering the marketplace, KFYR-TV reports that Mandan Sporting Goods hit the ground running!  It's pretty cool to be posting double digit sales increases over last year's numbers- but it's far from what's going on in Alabama. According to this report,  'Bama sales are up 246% for March/April 2020 versus March/April 2019.  So that was early pandemic time and I'm not sure if Alabama ever even shut down.

So how about the month of May? Well, Newsweek reports nationally an 80% jump in sales for May 2020 versus May 2019.  Memorial Day fell extra early this year landing on May 25th, the day George Floyd was killed. I would presume the riots and protest fueled a pretty strong surge in firearm sales for that last week of May, most likely carrying into June as well.

So, I guess it's good for Mandan Sporting Goods.  But, sure would be nice if we could get through the summer without any more motivation to stock up.

Although I should add- them gophers ain't gonna shoot themselves.