Will new Calif. ammunition law steer more business to gun stores?

(This post originally appeared on The Washington Post)

California’s legalization of recreational marijuana has captured many headlines this year. But could another controversial industry also be getting a boost?

The state’s licensed gun dealers — most of them small businesses — may benefit from a new law that took effect on Jan. 1. The law requires buyers who live in the state to purchase their ammunition face-to-face. That means they can no longer order these products online and have them delivered directly to their homes.

Orders instead must be shipped to one of the approximately 1,800 (per one research report) licensed gun dealers.

It’s going to be a pain for those licensed gun users — hunters and recreational shooters who, in many cases, go through thousands of rounds of ammo during a year. But for brick-and-mortar gun dealers it could very likely be an opportunity, if only because the move will increase their prices for services — and bring more customer traffic into their stores to pick up what they purchased online.

“You’re going to have extra paperwork to fill out or you send me your ammunition and I’m holding onto your ammunition for a couple of weeks, and I’m going to charge you a storage fee. That’s what a lot of dealers are doing,” said one gun shop owner in this report from a San Francisco television station. Gun shop owners started seeing more profits in December, as customers lined up to buy extra rounds of ammo before the laws went into effect.

But not everyone is profiting. Because the state’s Department of Justice hasn’t issued their guidelines for getting approval yet, many mom-and-pop shops have had to stop selling ammo altogether (stores that have federal firearms licenses are grandfathered so they can keep selling ammunition). Others may see sales impacted by rising ammo prices. Another potential challenge will be a new state law requiring ammunition buyers to get background checks beginning in July 2019.

Whether this is good or not for gun store owners, the biggest challenge for them may be keeping up with the changes. “They’re constantly rewriting some of this stuff,” an employee at one store told the Mariposa Gazette. “It’s a mess.”