Wednesday, December 19, 2012

With lawmakers set to discuss new gun control laws, gun sales are soaring.

Though statistics indicate a significant rise in sales in just the last few days alone, one local gun store owner says he doesn't think it's directly related to the shootings in Connecticut.

Bullseye Shooting Range owner Mike Relihan calls it the Twinkie effect. "Hostess Twinkies are going away, so everybody went out and cleaned the shelves out."

Relihan says he doesn't think any sort of federal regulation will do anything to prevent bad things from happening.

"The reality is, we've got people walking among us that shouldn't be walking among us. And I don't care if you take guns of this type away or any guns away, they're gonna find some way to do things. You know, somebody blew up a building not too far away from here. He didn't have a gun in his place."

President Obama has announced he is creating a task force headed by Vice President Joe Biden to come up with solutions to end future gun violence.

Customers we spoke to were skeptical that the federal government would do anything positive to change things. For that matter, Relihan, the store owner, says the proof is in the previous assault rifle ban in 1994.

" I don't know that I've heard of anybody that's ever gotten prosecuted under those bans at any point anywhere. And statistically, as you look at things, it really didn't change statistics on anything."

Each year, 10,000 Americans die in gun violence. In his speech Wednesday, President Obama said that the fact that the problem is complex is not an excuse to do nothing.