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LOCK AND LOAD….Turns out that Barack Obama’s victory on Tuesday has already stimulated the economy in North Carolina:

Starting in the days before the election, gun shops across the state have been mobbed by buyers who fear that Obama and a larger Democratic majority in Congress will restrict firearm sales.

….”It’s been an absolute madhouse,” said Trey Pugh, a manager at Jim’s Pawn Shop in Fayetteville, which is selling 15 to 20 AR-15 assault rifles a day. “I’m getting guys come in and say I always wanted that gun, and give me that one too and that one and, oh, I need a gun safe, too.” Distributors are running out of assault rifles, he said, and prices are rising.

On the stump, Obama didn’t discuss sweeping changes to gun laws. But his stance that local authorities should be able to make “sensible” laws has worried some.

I hope the Colt people are grateful. You can’t buy a marketing bonanza like this.

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WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We can’t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

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