CHAUTAUQUA CO., N.Y. — During what should be their busy season, gun stores in Chautauqua County are sitting on stockpiles of unsold ammunition, blaming New York's new ammo background checks for the lack of shoppers.
“We had done a couple thousand [dollars] a week of ammo [sales] to [now], literally nothing,” said owner of Winchester Armament in Bemus Point Pat Winchester.
“[Ammo Background checks] dropped probably 75-80% of the business,” said owner of Carnes Calibers in Ashville Matt Carnes.
New York implemented ammunition background checks on September 13.
After 43 years in business, owner of Spectacular Sports in Frewsburg, Thomas Moore has watched these regulations change his business in just three months.
“It has killed the ammo business here,” Moore said. “The information that we have to get from them to get a box of ammo, it’s not worth their time.”
Moore has seen background checks take up to 4-5 days to approve, so customers save time and just drive south.
In Frewsburg, there’s another gun store just down the road in Pennsylvania that doesn’t require customers to complete ammunition background checks.
With all of the Chautauqua County customers driving away, it puts a financial strain on the local businesses like Spectacular Sports.
“It’s not good, but [there’s] nothing we can do about it,” Moore said.
Like Moore, many Chautauqua County gun stores are struggling to compete with Pennsylvania shops that don’t have these same ammo regulations.
Both Winchester and Carnes tell WKBW that they haven't sold a single box of ammunition to a New York resident this deer hunting season.
Carnes sent pictures from his store and said that he is sitting on $10,000 of unsold ammunition.
“I have it, but nobody wants to go through that process to get it,” Carnes said.
New York State Police runs the background checks and was asked how it feels about people leaving the state for ammunition.
It simply responded:
“State Police does not speculate on the motivation of any individual.”
“[Customers] would rather jump across the border… unfortunately, instead of coming here and spending their money locally,” Winchester said. “And I can’t blame them.”
Without local ammunition customers, these businesses have to rely on gun sales and online ammo orders to people out of state just to make ends meet.
