Back then, I was at a different place in life and wasn't paying much attention to the demand/supply issues, as I was satisfied with what I had at the time. With all this panic buying and nobody having inventory now, is it comparable to '94, or worse? Yeah I know, NOOB, recent join date, low post count, yada yada yada.

Much worse, now.  Much worse.

 

I knew about it.

It's what caused me to get my pistol license.

The whole "Excercise your rights before you lose them" thing.

That's a big part of it.   The Internet is the other major difference, as relates to both information and sales.


ETA: I was in to guns at the time of the '94 ban - and was aware the ban was coming - but could do nothing about it, as I was only 17.

It was literally a completely different world in '94. I went out and panic bought a SKS, which wasn't affected by the AWB

This^



I was an FFL from 93-96, right during the beginning. It was pricey for black guns but the ammo did not go crazy. Only scare like this was the Komrade pistol and the Century Arms 7.62x39 Billion round ATF armor piercing pistol ammo thing. Ammo flowed throughout the 90's.

I also remember the primer scare, rumor about primers intentionally expiring.





 

The fact the interwebs weren't around like they are today I think has a big role to play too.  The "fear" that is being spread over the internet can hit retard levels.  Back then it was Fred's rant in his Shotgun News ad......  

All 87 threads on this subject agree:
The panic is much worse this time around for a multitude of reasons including widespread internet access and ARs being more mainstream.

Your right to get a pistol license?

I personally engaged in panic buying back then. I haven't since.  

I have engaged in a good bit of panic retention, however.

I was just out of high school when the 94 ban went into effect. My father and I were shooters since I was a kid though and I remember going to gun shows with him and seeing all the wonderful toys. We were just middle class folks with several hobbies between us and we had no real drive to buy "one of everything" back then. Hell, we hardly knew what was even out there as there was no internet and word of mouth spoken over the counter of a gun shop and the pages of shotgun news were the main information channels.

After the ban went into effect, the buying began. The gun shows began to reflect the new world order of post ban America. I will not call it hysteria as I do not remember lines around the block to get into gun shows or people marking stuff up double and triple. What I do remember is a slow boil increase in demand that peaked around the late '90s. Prices slowly climbed up as did demand, mostly as the full understanding of the ban became disseminated as well as the manufacturer's understanding of how to effectively "bypass" the ban. I personally believe a lot of people came into the military style weapon market simply because the government told them they couldn't have something.

But at the time the market filled the gaps... many people who wanted a "high capacity preban AR15" were content buying a "postban PB15" instead at half the price and so on and so forth. In my opinion all the first ban did was drive more people into shooting and expand the diversity of the market. When the ban ended the market diversity continued and expanded further to where we are today.

What we are seeing today is nothing like what I remember back in the '90s.

Oh yes.

Very true.  Back then we only had the philanderer-in-chief getting BJ's in the white house and attempting to redefine the definition of the word "is".  Today it's much more insidious I fear.

The internet is what has the panic so bad. Many more people know now.

I absolutely agree with this.  I've always been in to guns, and regardless of the ban would have been a life-long enthusiast, but that for me marked the turning point from hobby to ideology.

I was 22 in 94 and had always been around guns but wasn't really into guns.  I didn't even know about the AWB untill I got into guns around 2001.

I was just a boy when Clinton and company did everything they could to remove the 2nd amendment from the Constitution. I remember more of the years afterward, I remember the anger and distrust felt towards the federal government. But twenty years ago I think the country as a whole was better educated about things like the Constitution, there were fewer people that just wanted a "free" check from the government and to go back to watching "reality" TV. Yes you had the non working Jerry Springer viewers but they were in the minority, not anymore.

Mostly I remember that it was a debated topic. Yes, the media had a slant but there were enough freedom loving people to make up for it. This month in NY most of the firearms a person might own for defense were declared too dangerous for citizens to own and banned from future sales and are now to be registered. With no debate or input from the public, this was entirely done by politicians and even more so by media figures. I don't think they could have done something like this 20 years ago.

In the nineties I remember people talking about someday an truly oppressive government might take power and we would need those weapons to defend our freedom. Today people seem to think that oppressive government has arrived and it is just waiting steamroll us and wants to get the guns out of our hands before they hid the gas.