A small but significant portion of the US public has more fundamental concerns about the approach of the year 2000 than whether their personal computer will still work on New Year's Day.

While corporate America is spending millions to tackle the so-called Y2K issue, gun dealers around the country are reporting a sharp increase in sales, and saying concerned citizens are planning for the worst.

Mr Larry Hyatt, manager of Hyatt Gun Shop in Charlotte, North Carolina, estimates that his sales are up more than 20 per cent since the start of the year.

Many of Mr Hyatt's customers are concerned that if computer systems fail, power cuts could leave the emergency services too strained to be able to protect them. "The barbarians would come out quickly," he declares.

"A lot of the buyers are spending $700-$800 (€660-€754) a time. This is middle and upper-middle class buying".

Millennial self-preservation has become a popular theme on gun-related Internet message boards, but some Wall Street analysts are also taking the trend seriously.

Mr David Guthrie of Morgan Keegan said that some of the dealers he monitored had reported sales increases of 20-30 per cent.

Such figures may be exaggerated by the fact that Y2K fears have coincided with a spate of litigation against US gun manufacturers.

Some gun-lovers are concerned that the courts could crack down on arms ownership, Mr Guthrie said. "They are thinking, `I'd better buy one while I've got the chance'."

Mr Ross Null, the manager of a big Atlanta gun dealer called Candler's, said that panic buying was nothing new. Before the introduction of the 1994 Brady law, which restricted gun buying, he witnessed a surge in sales.

The Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers' Institute said that reliable figures had yet to be compiled for this year's sales.

"Obviously, there's a segment of the gun-owning public that's very concerned about the issue," a spokesman said.