Obama loyalists say gun owners need not fear curbs when he takes office in January. The Democratic governor of Ohio, Ted Strickland, told a rally last month he had spoken directly to Obama about the right to bear arms.
"If you are a sportsman, if you are a gun owner, if you are someone that honors and respects the Second Amendment, you have nothing to fear from Barack Obama," he told a crowd in Chillicothe.
The lobbying arm of the powerful National Rifle Association, however, stoked concerns during the campaign, calling Obama a "serious threat to Second Amendment liberties."
Among other complaints, they accused Obama of endorsing a 500-percent increase in the federal excise tax on firearms and ammunition -- a comment he made as an Illinois state Senator in Illinois in 1999, but has not repeated.
The sentiments are so strong Wall Street is taking notice. BB&T Capital Markets analyst Frank Mitsch on Wednesday raised estimates for Olin Corp due in part to expected increased sales from its Winchester firearms ammunition business.
But despite surging sales, not all gun dealers are celebrating.
Scottsdale, Arizona, gun shop owner Manuel Chee sold out of AR-15 type rifles in the days on either side of the election, but said he would prefer to have steady sales and no prospect of curbs -- whether real or imagined -- in the future.
"I'd rather that (Republican Sen. John) McCain got in and there's not a big scare and we just followed our normal sales," Chee told Reuters.
"Rather than say right now we are going to make a lot of money for a few months, and then in a few months, possibly, our business could be shut down," he added.
(With additional reporting from Chris Baltimore in Houston, Carey Gillam in Kansas and David Schwartz in Phoenix, editing by Philip Barbara)
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