From 60 Minutes: In the national debate over the right to bear arms, the election of Barack Obama was seen as a victory for those who want stricter gun controls.
But so far, things haven't worked out that way. The president recently signed a law allowing people to carry loaded guns in national parks.
Membership in the National Rifle Association, the NRA, has been rising and, as 60 Minutes and correspondent Lesley Stahl first reported in April, the financial crisis is having its own rather surprising effect: in past downturns people stocked up on things like canned soups, but this time it's guns. And even as the stock market was plummeting, shares in Smith and Wesson were going through the roof.
When Stahl showed up at the weekend gun show in Richmond, Va., the line to get in went around the building.
"How many guns will be sold at a show like this over a weekend like this?" Stahl asked Philip Van Cleave, the president of Virginia's largest gun-rights group.
"Probably thousands," he estimated.
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