National Buy a Gun day is April 15th, which actually falls on Wednesday this year.
This is kind of a weird year for BAG Day, for obvious reasons. At least in Texas, gun stores are considered “essential businesses”. There are two near me that are open, but taking the standard precautions (limiting the number of customers, sanitizing surfaces, enforcing social distancing, etc.) Cabela’s website says they’re open and doing the same thing, but I haven’t had a chance to run down there recently.
If gun stores in your area aren’t essential businesses, you can still order online, but you’ll need to find someone with a Federal Firearms License that’s open, willing to accept your shipment, and willing to do the transfer. Good luck with that, though Gunbroker does offer a “Find an FFL” service.
The other problem is that everyone is stocking up on guns while they can. I visited the shop nearest me last weekend: they still had some handguns and long guns in stock, but the handgun case was noticeably emptier than it had been. They were also pretty much cleaned out of the most popular ammo, though they were taking signups for 250 round boxes of 9mm FMJ, which they expected to come in this week.
I haven’t really found anything I want at the moment, to be honest. That same shop still has a nice S&W 38/44 HD, but they’re asking $1,300 for it. That’s probably reasonable, but I don’t know that I want to put out that much money for that S&W yet. I haven’t found a 4″ N-frame in a caliber starting with .4 at a price I want to pay, or a Beretta in .25 ACP or .32 at a good price. Don’t get me started on that S&W 1076 of my dreams…
This may be another one of those years where instead of buying a gun, I cross some more accessories off my list. I’d like to put some ghost ring sights and slings on both my social shotgun and my social lever gun. There’s some other smaller stuff I’d like to pick up as well, if I can. So unless I make it to Cabela’s and find something compelling and affordable, that’s probably the way I’m going to go.
I did pick up something in the past month. While it technically doesn’t qualify as a BAG Day purchase, I may post photos of it on BAG Day just for the heck of it. Look for that on Wednesday, if the weather is nice and I can get some pictures taken.
I assume the S&W 1076 is an exception to your “no stainless steel guns” rule.
Yes, but only because I want to use one to shoot Karl’s “Historical Handgun” class, for that full retro feel.