I heard a story on NPR recently about a nationwide ammunition shortage. While part of the shortage can be linked to what is being sent overseas to fight the two wars, the owner of a California gun store gave a different, more curious explanation.


Johnny Dury, the man being interviewed, claimed that fear of President Obama’s liberal and “socialist” agenda is bringing people to gun stores in droves, seeking to stockpile weapons and munitions. Dury said that his sales have gone up 40-50% since the day of Obama’s election. Fear of possible restrictions and higher taxes from the current administration are leading people to buy both new weapons and lifetime supplies of ammunition. He can barely keep anything in stock (one of the people he sold a case of ammunition to was a 79-year-old woman who wanted to stock up for her AK-47…I have no idea how much a “lifetime supply” of ammo is for an AK-47).

When asked how sales were the day he was interviewed, the store owner replied that it was, “an average post-Obama day.”

This is the kind of story that catches my attention because it emphasizes the impotence of the law, that even the fear of possible restriction sends people running for the gun racks. There is a certain irony that the desire to reduce the number of guns and bullets circulating in America through legislation has lead to the exact opposite happening. The reality is that under President Bush, a gun toting Texan, there were actually fewer weapons in circulation (and less motivation to stockpile).


I have rarely, if ever, observed obligation or restriction succeed in establishing a “lawful” environment. This example is only one of many situations where the law has utterly failed to do what it set out to do (and by “law”, I mean not just legal realities, but any obligation or restriction placed on us by another).

In my experience, I have only found one thing that accomplishes what it sets out to do and that is the grace that flows naturally from love. The one-way kind of perfect love that comes from God.