The National Shooting Sports Foundation reports some astonishing figures for gun sales in 2020:
Nearly 5 million Americans purchased a firearm for the very first time in 2020. NSSF surveyed firearm retailers which reported that 40 percent of sales were conducted to purchasers who have never previously owned a firearm.
NSSF tracks the background checks associated with the sale of a firearm based on the FBI’s National Instant Background Check System (NICS). NSSF-adjusted NICS checks for January through July 2020 is a record 12.1 million, which is up 71.7 percent from the 7.1 million NSSF-adjusted NICS January through July 2019. This equates to nearly 5 million first-time gun owners in the first seven months of 2020.
Certainly, many of those sales are related to home defense. The climate in America is becoming more dangerous and the rhetoric of revolution is being used freely and openly. This has turned some who might have been wishy-washy about guns into Second Amendment believers.
“This is a tectonic shift in the firearm and ammunition industry marketplace and complete transformation of today’s gun-owning community,” said Lawrence G. Keane, a senior vie president at the foundation. Read more…
