Last weekend, the clerks at one Seattle-area gun store could barely keep up with the crowd of customers. They stood in front of half empty walls where shotguns and rifles normally hang, quickly dispensing ammo and paperwork for background checks.

While some in the crowd seemed like they have hung around a gun store before, many of the customers would not appear like any common stereotype of a gun enthusiast -- minoritized people including Asian Americans; members of the LGBTQ community; male and female; young and old. There was at least one man bun.

At one end of the counter, "Doo Wop (That Thing)" by Lauryn Hill plays in the background while a clerk says "enjoy the apocalypse" after each transaction. They comment that they've been rushed with sales for weeks. Another says it hasn't been like this since 9/11.

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This one gun shop is not alone. Firearm sales in the region have sharply spiked, indicating that if there was a point in time when people began to get really nervous about the local COVID-19 outbreak, it could have been the start of March.

That's when folks went for the guns.

"When people are feeling vulnerable, or they are feeling that the times are uncertain and they are feeling fear, there is a tendency to go and buy weapons, and we are definitely seeing that in Bellevue," said Bellevue Police Chief Steve Mylett.

Firearm stores across Western Washington are experiencing a blitz of sales as people rush to go through the process of purchasing pistols, rifles, and shotguns. It has happened alongside the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic globally and in Washington state.

"The whole uncertainty of this virus and the impact that it's going to have on us locally and on the national level, I believe, is driving people to seek firearm possession," Mylett said.

Police departments, such as Bellevue, run the background checks required for every firearm purchase by residents within their jurisdiction. Chief Mylett says it's hard not to notice the spike.