A gun-shop owner checks out the merchandise.
(Photo: Reuters/Shannon Stapleton)
(Editor’s note: This article was a submission from freelance writer Max Slowik)
The FBI processed a record-setting number of background checks on Black Friday, November 27, 2015. They ran 185,345 background checks, almost 8,000 more check over last year’s Black Friday.
“This was an approximate 5% increase over the 175,754 received on Black Friday 2014,” explained Stephen Fischer, the FBI’s chief of multimedia productions to USA Today. “The previous high for receipts were the 177,170 received on December 21, 2012.”
Gun sales predictably spike on Black Friday and this is the third year in a row where Black Friday sales placed in the FBI’s top 10 highest-selling days. In 2012, 154,873 guns sold on Black Friday followed by 144,758 in 2013.
The number of background checks performed is only an indicator of how many guns were sold on Black Friday. A single background check is performed for multiple gun sales and it’s likely that the true number of gun sold this Black Friday was higher.
A look at the top 10 highest day for background checks. (Graph: NICS)
On top of that the number doesn’t include online and over-the-phone gun sales, which require time to handle and ship. These sales, along with the Black Friday weekend and Cyber Monday sales, will be counted at later dates.
Low prices and local deals aren’t the only forces driving these gun sales. Mass shootings, the possibility of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil and calls for increased gun control are all factors that put people into a gun-buying mood.
Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck calls it an “Obama effect,” he explained to the Washington Post, and that the demand for new gun control laws “motivates gun owners to get more guns, and perhaps some non-owners to get one ‘while the getting is good.'”
On Saturday President Obama made a plea for new gun control legislation following the Colorado Planned Parenthood shooting that also took place last Friday afternoon, killing three and wounding nine others.
“We have to do something about the easy accessibility of weapons of war on our streets to people who have no business wielding them,” said the President.
Firearms manufactured from 1986-2013 (Photo: ATF)
Increased gun sales are more than just a Black Friday anomaly. While it may be spurred by talks of more gun control, the demand for firearms has been steadily increasing for a decade straight. According to the ATF, in just the period between 2008 and 2013 the number of guns manufactured annually jumped from less than 5 million a year to 10.9 million per year. By some estimates, there are as many as 357 million guns held in private hands, more guns than there are people in the United States.
Along with strong gun sales gun stocks are booming, too, with companies like Ruger and Smith & Wesson going up by 70 and 80 percent, respectively, reports KSL.
With December holidays right around the corner, we’ll know in the next few weeks if Black Friday will set the high water mark for background checks this year. There’s a chance that it won’t be the last in the top ten this 2015.
I think that Black Friday is the best time to buy guns and ammo. And I don’t think that this year we’ll see drop in gun sales.
Barack Obama is such an insufferable fuck stick and he makes me want to projectile vomit. That’s all. I don’t have anything clever to say.
Very eloquent just the same. You summed it up for everyone here. Thank you.
We are going to need all the guns we have
I wonder what the new record will be the day after Hillary gets elected. Let’s all remember to vote in November so we never have to find out.
So those ten days add up to one million five hundred thousand guns rounded down. Ten days. Out of so many since November 1998. So not counting what’s already been around, and taking into account non licensed manufacture of guns like AR15’s and AK’s, (believe me when I tell you the community in which my circles reside alone are responsible for many untold rifles and “handguns” based on these platforms.) the numbers are very conservative at two hundred and fifty million. Three hundred? Five hundred million? More? In closets, basements, dresser drawers, attics, tucked away in a corner, over fireplace mantles, in pickup trucks, under car seats, those fake books, picture frame safes, under beds, in great big gun safes and vaults and just about everywhere else a gun can be set down. Soooo, back ground checks and restriction of anything that holds more than ten rounds is gonna fix terrorism, crazies and criminals from getting their hands on guns and keep us all safe? This from folks who have healthcare a cut above that which they have prescribed for the rest of us. They have full time armed security and live in a fenced off, ivory world where they have not even driven their own car in decades? And they call me delusional when I want to keep deporting illegal aliens because they say, “there’s just too many”………. No. Not only no, but hell no! This is how it’s gonna be, I will retain my 2nd Amendment rights, and they will be expanded back to the letter and spirit of our 2nd Amendment by legislation or by the sheer will of people infuriated by these delusional attempts to disarm the entire US population. And further we will be a nation of laws. Including those which define our borders and sovereignty. Laws which will be applied equally for everyone. Don’t like it? Too bad.
Lead,follow or get out of the way has been a long standing montra of mine. What you have said here i follow 100% and millions more in America as well. I predict, given the current climate and the fact its not likely to change a year from now, it will be a driving force to have another Reagon landslide and get a bunch of lazy conservatives off their duff to the poles to make it happen.
I have several shotgus for sale: Mossberg camo, rifled barrel w/sights, 12 ga., a Browning gold medal 20 ga. O/U skeet gun, w/several sets of choke tubes and a 45 y.o. Auto ordinance Thompson .45 rifle w/ 3 mags including a drum mag. also a green camo MKII .50 cal. muzzleloader w/custom sights and lots of accessories-complete package. Send email if interested, I also have several Ruger rifles, some unfired for sale right away…Jack 817-532-7435
We are Americans. We like our guns. It’s part of the Americana. We do not care what other countries are doing about guns. This is America, not some other country. So get off the gun control idea. We enjoy our guns for recreation and self-defense. And self defense is becoming more important what with all the craziness going on these days. Any politician that pushes gun bans or gun control needs to be banned and controlled.
I love it. In yo’ face Barry! The YObama Effect…a legacy we can live with. Thanks!