Marketed By Failed Gun Control Effort, AR-15 Sales Surge

The makers owe you thanks, control freaks

At the GunRunners Gun Show outside Atlanta, the line stretches out the door and around the corner. Dozens of people are waiting, ready to fork over big bucks for everything from pistols to high capacity magazines.

Here, the hottest seller isn't a shotgun, handgun, or even a pair of Angie Whitaker's .22-caliber bullet casing earrings. It's the AR-15 semiautomatic rifle.

"We probably brought maybe 100 AR-15s with us," said vendor George Mazzant, from On the Square Gun & Pawn. "I'd like to sell half of them, and, I'm sure we will. We've been doing that well every weekend." …

"[It's] been a very, very busy year for us," said Mark Malkowski, president of Stag Arms in New Britain, Conn. "Right now we're at about a year's back order, 70,000 rifles at this point."