Business & Tech

'Feeding Frenzy' for Guns and Ammunition at Trail's End in Fridley

'The craze is on,' said the outdoors retail store's manager. The store limited purchases of military-style rifles to one per customer on Tuesday.

Firearms customers have been on a shopping spree this week at Trail's End in Fridley, according to Dennis Klein, manager at the outdoors store.

"The craze is on," he said. "It's a feeding frenzy."

People are buying "ammo like crazy" and "lots and lots of guns," Klein said. The store had sold out of extra magazines and 223 ammunition Tuesday, and had imposed a limit on sales of AR-type, military style guns of one per customer—"'til they're gone."

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See also: National Chains Stop Selling Rifles after Newtown Shooting

Applications for gun permits hit a single-day record high in Anoka County on Monday, according to a St. Paul Pioneer Press reporter on Twitter, with 36 permit-seekers that day, Fox 9 reported.

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On Tuesday, the county accepted 32 applications, also breaking the old record of 31, according to the Star Tribune.

Klein called the gun-buying binge a continuation of the waves of interest after the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections, with gun enthusiasts anticipating new restrictions from President Obama.

"Once he's in, he can do anything he wants," is their thinking, Klein said. Customers are seeking the "AR type of stuff that you see military use [so] if they were to ban something, they got it before it's banned."

That picked up after the , in which a gunman killed 20 first-grade students and eight adults, including himself.

See also: All the Fridley Patch Posts on the Newtown Shootings

nationwide Tuesday in response to the Newtown shootings, USA Today reported. In a statement, Dick's said:

Out of respect for the victims and their families, during this time of national mourning we have removed all guns from sale and from display in our store nearest to Newtown and suspended the sale of modern sporting rifles in all of our stores chainwide.

Later Tuesday, the National Rifle Association broke its silence on the Newtown massacre. In a statement, the NRA vowed to "make sure this never happens again" and promised a fuller response on Friday.


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