Washington Examiner – by Paul Bedard
Despite bare shelves and back orders of up to a year, gun sales continued to soar last month as more people sought personal protection and got ahead of the coming gun control wave from the Biden administration and a liberal Congress.
The FBI said that its background check tally of 3,442,777 was the highest February count ever and followed January’s 4,314,804 monthly record over the 24-year-old system. Already, in just two months, there have been nearly as many background checks than for each of the first seven years of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System.
Industry experts, who are getting better at translating and adjusting the NICS checks into likely sales, said about 1.5 million guns were purchased in February.
While that is 10% higher than February 2020, considering the drought of weapons and ammunition at stores, it was likely the third highest February sales number, following 2013 and 2016.
Justin Anderson, the marketing director for Charlotte, North Carolina’s Hyatt Gun Store, said concerns about gun control are firing up sales.
Anderson, who Secrets regularly taps for industry trends, told us on Wednesday, “We’re in the midst of an interesting paradigm: We have a president who is a lap dog to the anti-gun lobby while 7 million Americans became new gun owners in the last nine months. President Biden has put forth one of the most anti-Second Amendment agendas I’ve ever seen, states are already scrambling to pass laws to resist any new federal gun laws, and people see their rights in jeopardy like never before. As a result, business is booming like never before, and, thankfully, product is becoming more available. Fear and uncertainty drives gun sales, and many people are arming themselves for a very uncertain future.”
One industry group, Small Arms Analytics & Forecasting, estimated sales at about 1.5 million. Another, the National Shooting Sports Foundation, gave its adjusted number at 1,387,076.
And both groups noted that the sales covered by the FBI system do not cover all sales and transfers.
Still, the number was huge and continues a trend of people buying more firearms.
NSSF said 21 million background checks were conducted for gun sales last year, a 60% increase over 2019.
And last year also saw a growing pattern of first-time buyers, especially minorities. The group said, “NSSF estimates that 8.4 million people bought a firearm for the first time in 2020. That’s 40% of all purchases. This year’s buyer is increasingly diverse too. Forty percent of 2020’s buyers were women and the biggest increase of any demographic category was among African Americans, who bought guns at a rate of 58% greater than in 2019.”
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/another-1-5-million-guns-sold-in-february
don’t get me wrong. I don’t want it to sound like I’m mister bigshot with an armory BUT .. right this minute I have more guns and ammo than I can carry. are there a couple guns I want? ehh.. I guess but like I said.. I wouldn’t be able to carry them.. my EDC is a S&W 40. I have an extra mag and 2 boxes in my truck. I have almost 4k rds of 22.. more than I can carry!! my point is.. how many millions of gun owners are just like me?? just for conversation sake.. I bet for at least half of that 1.5mln it’s their 1st or 2nd gun. every gunowner has 1 gun. most have 2 but how many have 8or10? regardless of all the ‘yeah buts’ and ‘what ifs’ .. no gunowner buys himself a new gun every month. they been doing 10s of millions of background checks a year since osama.. I think it’d be fair to say half of the bg checks and purchases are NEW gun owners.. meaning 250mln of us have guns.. at least. and.. my brother said if you have a concealed carry permit you don’t have to do a bg check. i may have that messed up but he ain’t lying. it may be any permit.. I don’t know. I don’t have one at all! I’ve never bought a gun at a store. I have no concept or idea about getting a permit or bg check.. I really don’t and I still have plenty of guns n ammo… making me one a them thar dOmestic terrrrisss they been talking about!.. thoughts??
They wont let me have one, LMAO. Yeah right, i cant just put one in my rig, too many inspections. All I can say is, I think your pretty much set weapon wise. What you cant carry, you can always have near by..Plus, you have your crew around, which im sure you have, but so you start with your rifles right, blast away with those first then work your way down to the pistols then the grenades…right? Then the knives?
Or have I been watching too many John Wick movies…
Youve been busting my balls for a lot of years, you dont strike me as having too much to worry about Morris.
oh if only we were good as John Wick!! I once saw him kill 3 men in a bar… with a pencil! .. I probably should try to buy a gun just to see if I’m on the list.. I seriously have no idea how to even go about it. i don’t have to do anything to buy ammo.. I think some states require ID but Alabama is pretty lax.. I think most cops assume that you have a weapon so they’re not as big a dicks as other states. dicks all the same but they do consider that they can be shot… ever since day after Lavoy was murdered I been carrying.. “illegally”.. and have not been stopped once since then. probably shouldn’t have said that!!! jinx myself!