Next to toilet paper and sanitizers of any kind, home defense items are high on the list of sought after items as positive coronavirus cases continue to rise across the state.

Stores selling those items have been pushed to the limit on inventory and are seeing a lot of unfamiliar faces come through the doors.

“We have a lot of first-time buyers,” said Abel Boyer, of A.F. Boyer Hardware and Guns, Slatington.

“Everyone wants something, but they don’t have the proper training. It’s a trying time because we are doing as much education as we are selling.”

Brian Lloyd, owner of Lloyd Tactical, Hellertown, said he’s made more sales in the last two weeks than the previous two months.

“I’m happy to see people are waking up to protect themselves. Most are just trying to get something to protect their homes. We have no idea what’s going to happen to us if we run out of food or gas ... people will start going house-to-house. They realize [self-defense] is needed.”

At the Ten-X Sport Shop in Lansford, Shawn Clark said this type of demand for firearms and ammunition hasn’t been seen since the Sandy Hook shooting, when there was talk of more stringent gun laws.

“Right before the Trump-Hillary election, there was also a lot of demand but it really died down after that,” Clark said. “Right now though it’s through the roof. One other thing we’re seeing is one person buying multiple guns.”

The Ten-X shop deals mostly with online sales. If a user in Texas buys a gun, for example, they then ship it to a federally licensed dealer there and the person will go there for the background check.

“It hasn’t let up since Friday afternoon,” Clark said. “It was honestly like the flip of a switch. We’re going to our distributor three times a week to pick up orders in terms of ammunition, but eventually that’s going to run out.”

On March 17, Pennsylvania’s instant background check system went down for a brief period, but is working once again.

Maj. Gary Dance, director of the Pennsylvania State Police Bureau of Records and Identification, said technology challenges and a surge in requests resulted in PICS twice going offline.

“An isolated server issue was responsible for the morning outage from 8 to 11:30 a.m. The second outage happened between 5 p.m. and 8:40 p.m., due to a backlog of request,” he said.

Despite the downtime, PICS completed 4,342 transactions, compared with 1,359 transactions on the corresponding Tuesday in March 2019.

Transactions include background checks for purchases, transfers, evidence returns and license to carry applications.

“Pennsylvania State Police are working with its vendor to increase processing power to avoid future backlogs and will adjust staffing as needed to meet demand,” Dance said.

“Rumors circulating on social media that PICS has been shut down as part of the commonwealth’s response to the COVID-19 epidemic are false. PICS is, and will remain, operational.”

Concerns similar to those in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina are a large driver of the high demand, Boyer said.

“There is a lot of fear that if everything is shut down, which it won’t be, that people will be looking to steal valuables and there will be a lot of looting going on,” he said.

Like any other grocery store, Boyer is also selling cleaning supplies at a rate never seen before.

Nationwide, gun sales were already off to a scorching start for 2020.

According to FBI statistics, 5.5 million background checks were conducted in January and February. That is roughly 1 million more than was conducted during the same period in 2019.

The three-day Eagle Arms Gun Show was canceled at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center, adding to greater demand at stores like Ten-X and Boyer.

“We call that the tax rebate special show because everyone comes with their tax refund and spends it there,” Clark said. “There are 2,000 federally licensed dealers there.

“That has forced people to the mom and pop shops.”