Coronavirus prompts a run on guns in US
Los Angeles: Gun sales have exploded in the United States in the last two weeks as the coronavirus outbreak worsens, with people stocking up on weapons and ammunition out of fear the pandemic might lead to social unrest.
‘We have had about an 800 percent increase in sales,’ said David Stone, owner of Dong’s Guns, Ammo and Reloading in Tulsa, Oklahoma. “I’m still not out of any caliber but I’m getting close to running out.” Stone told AFP that the overall majority of customers rushing to stock up on firearms and ammunition are first-time buyers grabbing anything available. “It’s fear over coronavirus,” he said. “I don’t understand it myself and I think it’s unreasonable.”
Several other store owners across the United States said they have also seen a surge in sales as people fear social order will unravel if the health and economic crisis caused by the virus escalates.
Tiffany Teasdale, owner of Lynnwood Gun, located in the state of Washington, one of the states hardest hit by the virus, said she has seen a massive uptick in sales with customers lining up an hour before the store opens.
“We used to have on what we would call busy days, 20 to 25 firearms being sold,” said Teasdale, who has hired a bouncer to keep everyone in check. “Today, we are seeing upwards of 150.”
She said shotguns were in shortage across the country, along with ammunition for them as well as ammunition for handguns.
“A lot of people are buying shotguns, handguns, AR-15 (semi-automatic rifles), everything,” said Teasdale, whose store is open seven days a week. Like Stone, she said most of her customers are first-time buyers who undergo background checks and, if need be, are given a quick course on how to handle their purchase.
“We have men, women, young, middle-aged, older, everybody buying guns,” she said.
“And all ethnic backgrounds — black, Asian, Indian, Hispanic.” She said one customer who came into the store recently decided it was time to arm himself after he witnessed two women fighting over the last case of bottled water at a store. (AFP)
Gang tries to rob woman of bag worth $51,400
Hong Kong: A Hong Kong police sergeant drew his gun during a stand-off with a knife-wielding robber and recovered a bag worth about HK$390,000 ($51,400) stolen from a businesswoman, a media report said on Tuesday.
According to initial investigation, the woman posted the Hermes Birkin bag for sale on the Carousell online selling platform last year, claiming the black crocodile-skin luxury bag was 99 per cent new and worth HK$399,000, he South China Morning Post said in the report.
Posing as a buyer, the gang, a trio, contacted the woman online and after she lowered the price, they agreed to meet outside an industrial building in Kwai Chung on Monday night.
The woman, who runs a trading company, went to the meet-up accompanied by her sister and a male friend, according to the police.
Superintendent Iu Wing-kan, assistant Kwai Tsing district commander (crime), said that while the trio waited for the buyer, three men dressed in black, wearing masks and brandishing metal bars rushed out and attacked the group, snatched the handbag and ran away. (IANS)
Know Pablo Escobar? Hail his hippos who’re restoring a lost world
New York: If you are in awe with Narcos and their dazzling yet dangerous escapades like cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar, love his hippos too as those animals may help counteract a legacy of extinctions, say researchers.
When Escobar was shot dead in 1993, the four hippos he brought to his private zoo in Colombia were left behind in a pond on his ranch.
Since then, their numbers have grown to an estimated 80-100, and the giant herbivores have made their way into the country’s rivers.
Scientists and the public alike have viewed Escobar’s hippos as invasive pests that by no rights should run wild on the South American continent.
However, a new study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by an international group of researchers challenges this view.
Through a worldwide analysis comparing the ecological traits of introduced herbivores like Escobar’s hippos to those of the past, they reveal that such introductions restore many important traits that have been lost for thousands of years.
“While we found that some introduced herbivores are perfect ecological matches for extinct ones, in others cases the introduced species represents a mix of traits seen in extinct species,” said study co-author John Rowan from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. (IANS)