The Unprecedented Surge in US Gun Sales During The Covid-19 Pandemic

A Great Infographic from the Minuteman Review

In March we wrote a blog about the “4 Rules for Handling a Firearm” which covered two main points: 1) the number of firearm purchases had skyrocketed in the US in January (2,702,702 NICS checks) and February (2,802,467 NICS checks) 2020 and 2) all these new gun owners need to learn the critical rules related to safety.

Well, since that time the unsettled nature of the world has driven even more people to purchase firearms - as see by the latest FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) data:

• March - 3,740,688 background checks
• April - 2,911,128 background checks
• May - 3,091,455 background checks

 
If you want to see more of the FBI’s NICS data here are the direct links:
 
     - https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/nics_firearm_checks_-_month_year.pdf/view
 
     - https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/nics_firearm_checks_-_month_year_by_state.pdf/view
 
     - https://www.fbi.gov/services/cjis/nics
 
So, in the first 5 months of 2020 there have been 15,248,440 NICS checks; an average of 3,049,688 checks per month.
 
What’s driving these purchases? Where are the purchases being made? Who’s making the purchases? Why? Like you we had lots of questions.
 
Luckily, James Miller from the Minuteman Review put together a great infographic and contacted us to see if we wanted to help spread the word. For those of you that aren’t familiar with the Minuteman review they’re a website “dedicated to supporting the 2nd Amendment and promoting firearms safety and education” that tries to “provide every gun owner—and prospective gun owner—the information they need to get the firearms and gear that are most relevant to their needs”. One of the things that we like about their website is that they have lots of articles, guides and reviews about gear related to the shooting sports.

Rather than trying to summarize all of the information in their infographic – we’ll just let it speak for itself: