Americans have purchased more than 18 million guns so far this year, making it the second-busiest year for firearm sales in at least two decades, according to estimates, a surge that comes amid a spike in gun violence.
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According to estimates released Wednesday by Small Arms Analytics and Forecasting, Americans bought 1.7 million firearms in November.
November was the third-busiest November since record-keeping began in the late 1990s, with 2.1 million sales, just behind November 2016 and November 2020.
This year appears to be the second-busiest year on record for firearm sales, with more than 18 million guns purchased so far, down from the record 22.8 million guns sold in 2020.
In the first 11 months of the year, 16.722 million guns have been sold, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, which is an industry trade group.
The total US gun sales could reach 20 million by the year's end, according to the Chief Economist.
The FBI ran more than 187,000 gun background checks on Black Friday, the busiest day of the year for the firearms industry. FBI background check data can correlate with firearm sales, but not all background checks are related to new gun purchases.
The key background.
Gun purchases have remained relatively high for more than a year. There has been a surge in interest in guns due to a combination of politics, protests and the Pandemic. The early days of Covid-19 caused economic uncertainty and caused people to fear for their own safety last year, and sales spiked again during summer 2020, when candidates back stricter gun control measures. In September, Brauer told Forbes that some of these fears may have been alleviated this year. Fewer Americans are worried about the coronaviruses, and President Joe Biden's push for tighter gun regulations hasn't yielded legislative success. The interest in guns has remained robust for some of the same reasons that purchases soared last year, according to a survey by the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
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There has been an increase in gun deaths. More than 19,700 Americans have died from gun violence this year, and more than 15,500 died in 2020, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Police say the 15-year-old suspect used a gun purchased by his father on Black Friday to kill four students at a high school in Michigan.
Chief critic.
Christian Heyne, vice president of policy at the Brady Campaign to prevent Gun Violence, told Forbes more research is needed to understand why gun violence has spiked, but he raised concerns about the implications of the recent rise in gun sales. He said that some people who bought firearms because of fear may not know the risks of bringing a gun into their home.
The quote is crucial.
Heyne said that all of these things are connected. If you increase uncertainty, if you increase access to firearms, and if you increase the root causes of violence, that will lead to more gun violence.
The increase in gun sales was not caused by last year's increase in gun violence. Many new gun owners entered the market because they wanted to protect themselves from crime. Most gun crimes are committed by people who obtained their firearms illegally, usually seven years after the initial sale. It is very rare that people will go through a background check to get a gun, and then commit a crime with it.
