I think you misread the original TNR article.

The uncertainty surrounding the recent election was a cause of serious worry for a relative few, and they already thought that Obama is a Muslim Communist from Africa. There wasn’t anything like an uptick in gun sales because of fear of civil unrest or political hostility to gun ownership, at least not around here. One guy I know who’s a gunsmith with a retail shop said that the economy has kicked the hell out of business. Guns are expensive, at least the ones that are obtained legally. (I have no idea what a weapon costs on the street.) Ammunition and maintenance, likewise.

BTW: The answer to the question, “Why would anyone need 3,000 rounds of ammunition?” is a simple one for me to answer: “He found a surplus deal or liquidation sale two years ago, and is still using what he bought then.” One case of .22 ammunition is 5,000 rounds. One person participating in a rifle league competition goes through about 17,000 rounds in a season, making little holes in paper.

Right now, gun sellers are experiencing an uptick in business. It’s because people who want or believe they need guns rightly see that everyone who doesn’t is angry at them as a group. Those angry people are likely to push legislation through to deprive them of the ability to buy guns anymore, so they’re buying now while they can. This is liable to create shortages, a very profitable circumstance for gun manufacturers. If draconian laws are pushed through based on an emotional response to this horrible crime, they will work as well as all efforts at prohibition always have in this country: they will support the expansion of illegal gun sales, in the tradition of black markets everywhere.

So, yes, I still believe it’s important to discuss this, and to see if support for certain alterations in the terms of gun ownership or transportation exists, but for rational reasons rather than wishful thinking. That means we talk to each other, rather than at each other, and attempt to remember what a compromise is. If there is resistance to compromise, we try again. That’s the way the grown-ups behave.