Local law enforcement facing ammunition shortage during national political panic

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WCJB) - A new ammunition shortage is following what many are calling a politically- driven panic.

This is not a new but rather recurring issue-- similar to its occurrance back in March when gun and ammunition sales skyrocketed with the beginning of the pandemic.

“The bulk of people are panic-buying and hoarding it ... and they will never use it,” said Alachua County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Art Forgey.

According to studies and data from several sources, ammunition and gun sale spikes have historically been directly linked to political or health paranoia-- like elections and pandemics.

“It’s kind of become a cycle with our national elections ... where there is speculation that gun rights are going to be taken away or tampered with.”

For the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office, ammunition is crucial for training purposes and certifications. The SWAT team itself has at least 16 hours of training a month.

“We’ve seen it before and we try to plan for it around this time,” said SWAT Commander Lt. Joshua Crews. “So, we do have ammunition right now ... but we are concerned about future ammunition. We are trying to get orders in earlier so that if it is on back-order, we have a little stock pile to deal with so we try to plan for it ... but it does cause issues.”

Panic-buying ammunition will likely result in a lot of unused ammunition--ammunition that is necessary and critical to law agencies.

“I don’t foresee we will ever need to have many thousand rounds of personal ammunition for ourselves ... so just take a deep breath and resist those urges to go out and panic buy,” said Forgey.

Deputies say they are unable to accept ammunition donations and they do believe this shortage will pass.

Copyright 2021 WCJB. All rights reserved.