BAKER CITY (AP) — Faster than a speeding bullet, rifles and handguns have been flying off the shelves here and across the country since Barack Obama won the presidential election.

“Gun sales doubled Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday last week, and we’ve sold out of a lot of the guns we normally have in stock,” said Jim King, sporting goods manager at Thatcher’s Ace Hardware in Baker City, which still retains a tinge of its Wild West boomtown origins.

People are afraid of losing their Second Amendment gun rights, King said, although that would involve a lengthy and improbable attempt to amend the U.S. Constitution.

He said much of the buying frenzy involves assault rifles, which, King said, Obama’s Web site says he wants to ban.

The Web site includes a statement supporting making the expired federal assault weapons ban permanent because such weapons belong on battlefields, not streets.

On Monday, King said the sporting goods department at Thatcher’s was down to one Colt AR-15 rifle, the semiautomatic civilian version of the M16 and M4 assault rifles.

The AR-15 sells for about $1,350.

“It’s not just Baker, its everywhere,” King said. “We called one warehouse that went through 4,000 assault rifles in four days. One warehouse we called had 21 assault rifles when they opened for business on Monday, and within 30 seconds they were gone,” King said.

“We are on waiting lists now to get more of these (Colt AR-15s). People are coming in and paying for them up front,” King said.

The gun rush began with Obama’s nomination and crested with his election, retailers say.

Published reports quote shop owners as saying sales have jumped 40 percent since Obama won the election. Prices are expected to increase.

King said handgun sales have also soared due to concerns about Obama’s voting record in favor of gun control as well as statements on the Obama-Biden Web site indicating they plan to tighten gun ownership laws and repeal legislation that restricts police from releasing the names of citizens with concealed weapons permits.

Currently, police share that information only in cases where an individual is under investigation for specific crimes involving use of a handgun.

Fears of possible higher taxes on ammunition has led to a run there, especially for assault rifles and handguns, Musgrove said.

“Surprisingly the biggest increase in sales I’ve seen has been in women buying small handguns. There’s a lot of uncertainty about what the future holds, and they want to buy a handgun while they still can,” Musgrove said.

“I don’t think anybody in Baker really sweats a lot of crime around here, but with the Democrats in control of Congress and the presidency, a lot of people want to buy a gun now, in case they change the laws.”