Concealed Handgun classes have been filling up, and guns and ammo are flying off the shelves at gun stores across the Brazos Valley.

“I went to several gun stores in Houston and they were out, so I said I'll go to Champions. I come here and half the counters are bare,” said Lynn Leejune, a Champion Firearms customer.

Champion Firearms co-owner Mike Stulce says the sales spike came after President Obama announced that new gun control policies are on the way, as a result of the tragic elementary school shooting in Connecticut earlier this month.

“The fact that we can't prevent every act of violence doesn't mean that we can't steadily reduce the violence,” said President Obama in a news conference on Dec. 19. Obama went on to say that new legislative proposals are expected to be submitted in January.

Stulce says high capacity magazine ammunition and semi-automatic rifles, like the one used at the school in Newtown, are in high demand.

“Anything that they think could be proposed to be banned...they're buying them,” said Stulce

That's not the only change gun store owners have noticed.

Concealed Handgun License classes have been filling up recently, and many of the people enrolling are teachers.

“We have had teachers, nurses, people who do home health care. We've seen a big rise in those folks,” said Gene Schiller, a long-time concealed handgun class instructor at Schiller Arms.

Texas DPS statistics show that more than two thousand concealed handgun licenses were issued in the Brazos Valley last year. That's 700 more than the year before.

Whether people want to protect themselves or their right to bear arms, the result is the same.

“I think people are trying to get ahead of the curve and buy their guns now,” said Leejune.