OPELOUSAS, La (KLFY) – Austin’s Outdoors located inside St. Landry Lumber Company says gun sales have gone up about 80% within the last three weeks.

“Last couple of weeks, gun sales have been phenomenal,” said Austin Perkins, owner of Austin’s Outdoors.

In light of recent shooting tragedies, Perkins says many people are just really feeling the need to protect themselves.

“People are scared and they want to protect their homes and their families,” said Perkins.

With a gun selection of more than 1800, Perkins says the hot ticket buy for many customer’s has typically been an assault rifle.

We’ve probably sold more assault rifles in the last two weeks, then I’ve sold since we’ve been in business,” said Perkins.

On average, Perkins says an assault rifle runs about $700 and store employee’s say majority of the time customer’s come in knowing exactly what they want. 

“We do get the occasional customers that don’t really know what they want; they’ve never even owned a gun, never shot a gun,” said store employee, Raquel Miller.

Miller works directly with many of the store’s customers. She says even if you’re inexperienced with handling guns, they’ll walk you through the process. 

“We don’t want them to be intimidated by guns,” said Miller. “We want to show them exactly how to use them if they don’t know how.”

Most of all before completing a transaction, Perkins says they do ask a series of questions. 

“What they’re looking for? What the use of the gun is going to be for?,” said Perkins.

Perkins says with proper basic training they do their best to make sure the guns don’t end up in the wrong hands.