Speed has rarely picked up a gun before, but contacted Timberline Firearms and Training, enrolled in classes, bought her first gun, a 9mm, then a second one, a shotgun, all in the last six months. Her purchases are among more than three million firearms sales across the country since March, three million more than what normally would have been sold during these months, as estimated by Wellesley College Economics Professors Phillip Levine and Robin McKnight. “Half of that increase occurred in June alone. This pattern highlights an important potential consequence that may result from this tumultuous period: more firearms in the hands of private citizens,” stated Levine and McKnight in a July article for the Brookings Institution, a non-profit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C. Past spikes in firearms sales have occurred following the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting and the San Bernardino terrorist attack, the professors report. “I don’t feel immediately threatened, but COVID-19 plays a part,” said Speed. “We’re starting to see groups that are acting and assimilating as domestic terrorists. If that were to infiltrate Flagstaff, people would have to take care of themselves.”  [full article]