LATIMES.COM WEDNESDAY, MARCH 18, 2020A
THE NATION
TULSA, Okla. — David
Stone snagged a cardboard
box of .223-caliber ammuni-
tion from the shelf and slid it
across the glass countertop,
offering his go-to sales pitch:
“Welcome to the biggest se-
lection of ammunition in all
of Oklahoma.”
“I’m not sure I can keep
on saying that,” Stone said,
explaining that the supply of
goods at Dong’s Guns,
Ammo and Reloading has
been seriously depleted over
the last few days.
“When I say sales have
been booming,” he said, “it’s
an understatement.”
Gun sales are surging in
many U.S. states, especially
in those hit hardest by the
coronavirus — California,
New York and Washington.
But there’s also been an
uptick in less-affected areas,
with some first-time gun
buyers fearing an unraveling
of the social order and some
gun owners worried that the
government might use its
emergency powers to re-
strict gun purchases.
Stone’s packed store
shares a small strip of road
with a church, a cemetery
and another gun shop, and
in recent days he has sold
several firearms to truckers
traveling along Interstate 44
here in Oklahoma. One
trucker, who was headed to
Arizona, bought $2,
worth of firearms and am-
munition, and another
trucker, who was headed to
Illinois, dropped $200 on am-
munition alone.
“You got to be protected
for all sorts of stuff,” Stone
said. “Seems like the world
has gone mad.”
In California, would-be
customers formed a long line
outside the Martin B. Ret-
ting gun shop in Culver City
over the weekend.
“Politicians and anti-gun
people have been telling us
for the longest time that we
don’t need guns,” said John
Gore, 39, part of the crush of
customers in recent days.
“But right now, a lot of peo-
ple are truly scared, and they
can make that decision
themselves.”
Ammo.com, an online re-
tailer of ammunition, has
also seen a recent increase in
sales. According to the com-
pany, from Feb. 23 to March
4, transactions increased
68% compared with the 11
days before Feb. 23, a day
when Italy reported a major
outbreak of the coronavirus
that causes COVID-19.
Some gun control groups
have raised concerns about
children out of school for the
next several weeks, which
could result in more children
and teens being killed in
homes with unsecured guns.
“The unintended conse-
quence of these panic-in-
duced purchases in re-
sponse to the COVID-19 pan-
demic could be a tragic in-
crease of preventable gun
deaths for the loved ones
these individuals are trying
to protect,” Kris Brown,
president of the Brady Cam-
paign to Prevent Gun Vi-
olence, said in a statement
Monday.
The National RifleAssn. and other 2nd Amend-
ment advocates have been
applauding the uptick in
firearms sales. “You don’t
need it, till you need it,” Don-
ald Trump Jr. tweeted re-
cently.
According to various re-
ports, the surge in gun sales
started several weeks ago in
states such as Washington
and California, and included
large numbers of Asian
Americans, some fearful of
anti-Asian backlash over the
coronavirus.
At Laguna Guns &
Accessories in Elk Grove,
south of Sacramento, the
shop’s owner said he has
seen a recent run on his in-ventory, with many Asian
American customers stop-
ping into the store, but oth-
ers too. Over the last week in
Elk Grove, an elderly woman
died of COVID-19 in a senior
care facility, and the area’s
school district — one of the
largest in California — was
one of the state’s first to
close.
“It’s panic,” said George,
the shop owner, who would
consent to the use of only his
first name.
For weeks, customers
have been crowding into Ar-
cadia Firearm and Safety, a
gun store in the heart of
Southern California’s Chi-
nese American community.The store’s owner, David
Liu, said it was the busiest
he’d ever seen, and not just
because of his Asian Ameri-
can clientele.
“It’s everybody,” said Liu,
adding that his major sup-
pliers are out of stock, mak-
ing it impossible to reorder.
“It’s not only California, it’s
the whole nation that’s
cleaned out. ... It’s like toilet
paper.”
Three minutes before the
store’s closing Sunday, first-
time gun purchaser Anna
Carreras was one of the re-
maining customers, waiting
to see what inventory was
left.
“It’s not like an activepanic, more a preoccupation
with making sure everyone
is adequately prepared, my-
self and family and friends,”
she said. “Better to be pre-
pared and not need it than
need it and not have it.”
In Tulsa on a recent after-
noon, the click of magazines
jamming inside handguns
reverberated off the cinder-
block walls of Dong’s Guns.
Dozens of people — many of
whom seemed utterly un-
fazed by warnings to stay
home and practice social
distancing — filtered in and
out of the shop.
When approached by a
reporter, one man refused to
answer questions if he
couldn’t first get a hand-
shake. Nearby, another man
walked the aisles in search of
a scope for his bolt-action ri-
fle.
Brandon Jay, 37, said his
interest in the gun shop had
nothing to do with the co-
ronavirus. He was here to
protect himself from a neigh-
bor who has made threats.
“It’s the flu 2.0,” he said,
shaking his head. “People all
scared of this — it’s the flu.
It’s some made-up stuff from
the coasts.”
With 17 confirmed cases
of the coronavirus and no
deaths, Oklahoma — unlike
California or Washington —
hasn’t experienced the
hour-by-hour updates of the
pandemic’s spread. Though
Jay is skeptical of the risks,
he said he was encouraged
to see more people buying
guns.
“If this hysteria is helping
the cause, then that’s great,”
he said. “Strap up.”
Less than a mile down a
two-lane road from Dong’s,
Bryan Pratt grabbed an
AR-15 pistol from the back of
his pickup truck in the
parking lot of 2A Shooting
Center. Pratt, who likes to
shoot his firearm for sport
most weekends, said the
parking lot was unusually
packed.
“There’s no sports games
on,” he said, “so I guess peo-
ple want to shoot.”
Pratt said he wasn’t yet
worried about the virus —
maybe when there are more
cases in the area, he said.
“I’m not there yet,” he
said, gripping his gun case
and jogging inside.
He had reserved a lane
for an hour and didn’t want
to waste time.Lee reported from Tulsa
and Chabria from
Sacramento. Times staff
writer Louis Sahagun in Los
Angeles contributed to this
report.Gun stores see a rush amid virus
Longtime firearm owners are stocking up, while many first-time buyers fear social unrest
By Kurtis Lee
and Anita Chabria
THE MARTIN B. RETTINGgun shop in Culver City saw long lines over the weekend. “Right now, a lot of
people are truly scared,” said John Gore, 39, who was among the customers shopping there on Sunday.Francine OrrLos Angeles Times“WHENI say sales have been booming, that’s an
understatement,” said David Stone of Dong’s Guns.Ian MauleTulsa World
AMMO.COMreported a 68% increase in sales after
Feb. 23, when Italy reported a major virus spread.Ian MauleTulsa WorldWASHINGTON — Con-
tracting the new strain of co-
ronavirus was stressful
enough for one 55-year-old
Washington, D.C., aero-
space consultant. But track-
ing down and calling the
people he came into contact
with may have been just as
bad.
“Are you sitting down? I
got bad news,” he told peo-
ple at least a dozen times.
The consultant was diag-
nosed Friday with the ill-
ness, one among the early
waves of known cases in the
United States. And his ef-
forts to call people around
the country and around the
world — including some
within the highest reaches of
government — illustrate
how far a single individual
can potentially spread the
virus.
His calls caused factories
to shut down, airlines and a
ski van service to contact ev-
eryone on their manifests, a
hotel to draft a letter sent to
its guests, and congres-
sional advisors and officials
in the Israeli government to
consider who they might
need to call.
In a phone interview Sun-
day, he said he was suffering
from painful coughing and
shortness of breath. His wife
has been feverish.
The consultant asked
that his name not be used to
protect the privacy of his cli-
ents. But he agreed to tell his
story as a warning for others
to listen to government ad-
monitions and follow social
distancing guidelines.
His story begins at the
American Israel Public Af-
fairs Committee conference
in Washington at the begin-
ning of the month.
The consultant met with
high-ranking defense offi-
cials from Israel and defenseindustry leaders from the
United States. He said he
most likely contracted the
virus from someone there.
Since then, at least half a
dozen people who were in at-
tendance at that conference
have been diagnosed.
But the consultant did
not know he’d been infected.
So he continued going to
Capitol Hill to hold meet-
ings. He went to a profes-
sional hockey game and sat
in one of his client’s seats in a
booth with two factory em-
ployees. He flew to Vail for a
five-day ski vacation with hischildren.
He started feeling a little
strange on Tuesday, his last
day on the slopes — some
coughing and a slight fever.
He figured it was the alti-
tude.
He got on the plane that
night and started coughing
more, drawing uncomfort-
able stares from fellow pas-
sengers.
Thursday, he went to the
hospital, which was initially
reluctant to test him. His
temperature was only 99.
degrees.
But he insisted, explain-ing he had already had a re-
cent flu and had been to the
AIPAC conference, two red
flags that prompted medical
staff to put him in an isola-
tion room for four hours
while they sought permis-
sion from the Health De-
partment to test him.
He got the bad news
Friday morning and im-
mediately started calling
people, at least a dozen. He
was anxious and a bit em-
barrassed.
“I just felt terrible that I
was that guy,” he said.
“When I told them, there was
silence on the other side.”
He was relieved that the
Israeli officials had already
been required to self-quar-
antine when they returned
home. “Those guys are OK,”
he said, “so it’s the other peo-
ple I’m worried about.”
When he wasn’t cough-
ing, he kept calling — con-
gressional offices, compa-
nies, his hotel in Vail, the van
service that took him and his
kids to the slopes. The air-
line kept him on hold for
hours; his travel agent fi-
nally got through.
The hotel sent a letter to
its guests. The van service
said it had expected a call
like his and was prepared to
make calls to the 10 people or
so from around the country
who rode through the moun-
tains with the contagious
consultant. The company
that gave him the hockey
tickets had to shut down its
factory to test employees, as
did other businesses he in-teracted with.
Some people he spoke
with needed him to write
memos with key dates and
times that they could show
their own doctors.
“As soon as I found out, I
started banging away the
calls because I did not trust
anyone to do the forensic
work for me” of contacting
and warning those who
might have been exposed, he
said, “and I was right, no one
did call.”
When he reached people,
after an initial silence, they
were understanding, much
to his relief.
“Politics didn’t matter
when I spoke with these peo-
ple,” he said. “We get it. We’re
going to try to do the right
thing.”
The hospital told him to
call ahead if he needed to re-
turn, so they could set up an
isolation room with respira-
tory equipment.
“I think a lot of people
have it and don’t know it,
people who have been
turned away,” he said. “The
symptoms are flu-like, and
you don’t have to be that
sick.
“They only tested me be-
cause of the fact that I went
to a big conference and I
pushed the issue with
them,” he added.
Like many Americans, he
is already weary of the isola-
tion.
“I feel like Jack Nicholson
in ‘The Shining.’ I’m about
to snap with this cabin
fever.”Sharing diagnosis is a crucial but awkward task
A Washington, D.C.,
consultant had to
make a dozen calls.
By Noah Bierman
AFTERa man tested positive for COVID-19, he began to warn people with whom
he’d been in contact. Above, the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., airport on Saturday.John ScalziAssociated Press