BARDSTOWN — The digital counter above the long glass display case at Kentucky Gun Co. read 60 when Kerry Hinkle Jr. got there late Wednesday morning.

He pulled No. 90 from the red ticket dispenser — the kind used at a deli — and went off to find ammunition.

Two hours later, Hinkle stood waiting by the counter, holding a black box filled with bullets: 9 mm, 200 rounds; four boxes of 12-gauge shotgun shells, five to a box.

“No. 87!” an employee yelled. “87! Y’all holler and communicate. It makes things easier on this side of the counter.”

“This is crazy,” Hinkle said, looking at the crowded store.

Hinkle had been thinking about buying his first gun for some time. He researched prices online and asked his friends who owned them for advice.

Earlier in the week, scrolling through news headlines of the coronavirus outbreak, he decided now was the time.

“With everything going on, I felt like I needed some sort of home protection,” said Hinkle, 36, a Pewee Valley resident and father of two boys, 9 and 10. “The way people are starting to respond, it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

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Hinkle is not alone. As state leaders limit or close access to a growing number of businesses in an aggressive attempt to contain the potentially deadly virus, some gun sellers in Louisville and the surrounding areas say their stores have been slammed in recent days with customers looking to stock up on weapons and ammo.

“I think part of it is fear. You don’t really know what’s going on exactly,” said Tony Wheatley, an organizer of the Facebook groups, We Are KY Gun Owners and Constitutional Kentucky. “This virus is a nasty thing … people just want to be protected.”

Shoppers are finding near-empty shelves and long lines at some gun stores. To meet the demand, some store owners have started putting purchase limits on popular ammo.

Other stores have chosen to temporarily close. River City Firearms did so this week, saying the store hoped to reopen April 1.

"This is a very difficult decision for me to make,” the owner wrote on the company’s Facebook page. “But I do believe it is the right one.”

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It’s not just gun sales that have been affected. The National Rifle Association canceled its annual meeting, slated to be held in mid-April in Nashville, Tennessee.

The owners of Knob Creek Gun Range in West Point hoped the company’s famous “Machine Gun Shoot” would go ahead as planned April 3 and 4, telling the website guns.com: “We work so hard to put it on every six months. It’s just hard to believe that a little flu virus is going to keep it from happening.”

By Tuesday, they announced the show would not be happening, posting a picture on Facebook of a cartoon coronavirus pointing a long rifle at the Earth and bragging about spreading chaos and canceling major events.

At Stewart’s Pawn Shop at 12th and Broadway in Louisville, owner Jeff Stewart said he’s had customers come looking to buy a gun or boxes of bullets after finding none at some national chains in the area.

Sales have probably tripled in the last week, he said.

“It’s just like the grocery stores, people can’t get toilet paper or hand sanitizer or ground beef,” he said. “The fear of the unknown makes people leery.”

Kentucky Gun Co., owner Patrick Hayden estimates his sales have increased by 700%, far surpassing previous spikes seen during the Obama administration, when buyers were fearful of possible federal gun regulations.

Both .556- and .223-caliber bullets, commonly used in AR-15 rifles, have been selling well, as have 9 mm pistols.

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“In general, I think people are preparing themselves for a national quarantine, for any type of crime or uneasiness they might experience in the next month or couple months,” Hayden said. “They expect crime to go up, police to be stretched thin and response times at minimal.”

Hayden said he’s reduced store hours, started twice-daily store cleanings, and suspended safety and training classes and some range activities.

They’ve stopped taking new orders on their website, in part to make sure they can still supply local customers. The company’s gunsmith, a man in his 70s, has taken a monthlong voluntary leave of absence to take care of himself and his mother.

Hayden’s preparing for further inventory shortages and more limits on ammo sales — some orders are already delayed up to 6 months for popular types of bullets, he said — and for the possibility of having to close the store and work remotely.

A small line of people waited to get in Hayden’s store Wednesday afternoon, adhering to the “one in, one out” policy written on a cardboard sign near the front door.

Inside, customers — men, women, young and old, black and white — grabbed boxes of bullets on wooden pallets and piled them into green baskets or small shopping carts. Two-hundred rounds of 9 mm ammo were selling for $47.99 a box. Boxes of .233-caliber bullets were priced at $6.49 each, with a limit of 10 boxes per customer.

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Other customers browsed racks of shotguns and long rifles while a soundtrack of late-'90s pop and alternative music — Weezer, John Mayer and the like — played over the store’s speakers.

Near one of the tall industrial shelves of bullets toward the middle of the store, Lauren Skala held seven boxes of bullets in her hands as she balanced her cellphone between her ear and shoulder, asking her husband if he needed shotgun shells.

The 25-year-old Bardstown resident and massage therapist said she isn’t buying ammo out of fear for her safety, but because she wanted to have enough in case grocery stores run out of meat or close and they have to hunt.

“I’d rather be able to provide for my family,” she said.

Nearby, Shea Grimsley and Chaz Jewell, both from Campbellsville, scanned a row of AR-15 rifles.

“The virus is not nearly as scary as people when they panic,” said Grimsley, 46, a paramedic. “It’s a really weird time … not like anything.”

Jewell, 31, an engineer, said he had been in the market for such a rifle. The gun store possibly being forced to close its doors just gave him the extra push to purchase one.

“I don’t think we need arms like this (because of the virus),” he said. “But I’d rather have it and not need it than need it and not have it.”

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Meanwhile, over at the glass display cases full of handguns, hundreds of them, Hinkle heard his number called. He settled on an Emperor Firearms 12-gauge shotgun and a Taurus G3 9 mm pistol.

But before he could leave with them, he had to fill out some paperwork — a federal requirement — and wait for his background check to be completed.

Normally, they’re done in less than a minute. The last day or so, they’ve been taking as long as 10 minutes.

Hinkle put his ammo box on the glass case and hummed the words to a Third Eye Blind song playing on the store speaker while an employee looked up at the digital counter and yelled out the next number.

Jonathan Bullington is an investigative reporter. Reach him at: 502-582-4241; JBullingto@courierjournal.com; Twitter: @jrbullington. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: courier-journal.com/subscribe.