Congratulations Gun Owners, we’re making it happen! The National Instant background Check System (NICS) for October 2019, showed record levels of background checks. In essence, the firearms community is buying more guns than ever before. Regardless of how you look at the NICS background check system, in my view, more gun ownership is always a good thing.

NICS – A customer submitting a Form 4473

The previous record was in October 2016, during the election. Back then there were several fears present in the gun community which made for some record sales months. Thankfully events turned out in the favor of the gun community but the sudden realization that gun rights might have taken a massive hit was enough to set a record for gun sales in October. That October set the all-time record for NICS background checks for that month with a whopping 2,333,539 total background checks.

That number, however, is not an accurate representation of how many guns were sold in the month of October 2016. Minus 1,228,216 permit checks and rechecks, the number comes down to 1,105,323 total firearms sold that month.

NICS Chart showing the growth in background checks submitted.

NICS Background Checks – A Record-Breaking Month

In October of 2019, three years after that record-breaking month the comparable numbers are as follows:

Total NICS: 2,393,609

Permit checks and rechecks: 1,288,274

Firearms sales proxy, total less permit checks and rechecks: 1,171,692

The firearm sales proxy for October 2019 shows a new record with an increase of six percent. This is an amazing improvement especially in a time when gun rights are not in a higher than normal amount of danger of being railroaded.

NICS Background Checks take place any time a weapon is purchased from a licensed FFL.

The Future

At some point, the demand for firearms will either be saturated or driven underground by infringements on the Second Amendment. If the 2nd Amendment is enforced by the courts, the demand will drop back to normal levels once again. However, if our rights are stripped by legal means, this could snuff out any legal demand for background checks in short order.

I predict near record-high levels of firearms sales to continue through 2020, for obvious reasons, until then keep up the good work.

NICS Background Checks