A whooping 1.8 million guns were sold in April 2020, up 71 percent from the year before.
This is great news for gun makers and sellers as the industry is now considered an “essential service. Even in a large-scale pandemic crisis, people are still concerned for their safety and ready to fully support their Second Amendment rights.
Early on during the pandemic, politicians in places like California tried to curb gun purchases. However, the White House quickly moved to re-classify gun suppliers as an essential service — preventing anti-gun politicians from doing so. Groups like the NRA and the Gun Owners of America had legal teams of hardworking people making sure that gun stores were declared essential.
The NRA also reported that the number of background checks were up 21 percent over last year at this time. The FBI’s National Instant Criminal Check System (NICS) reported that March 2020 set some huge records, but April knocked it out of the park.
April 13th through the 19th marked the biggest week of all time for gun sellers. They did the most checks in that week over any other week in their history. It all adds up to 2.9 million checks for the month of April. Those checks are split over the transfer of a handgun or long gun, and other transactions for gun stores.
It’s not just long term gun owners who are buying more guns either. Many of these permit checks were for new gun owners who want to be part of the community — patriotic people who legally own guns for personal safety, family protection, and home based self-defense. The fact of the matter is that in a time of global crisis with many people being furloughed from their jobs, rates for violent crime can soar — and American patriots aren’t taking that sitting down.
This trend will likely surge even higher in the near future, even as some of our states are reopening regular or limited operations due to COVID-19.
Of course, there are other factors contributing to the surge in gun ownership. Some people also worry that, in a presidential election year, that our gun rights might be taken away if the wrong person ends up in the Oval Office. Hopefully, that won’t happen, but it seems that for the time being, more and more people are going out to responsibly arm themselves.
