On January 4, the FBI released numbers for annual background checks for gun purchases showing that 2015 broke the previous one-year record by more than 2,000,000 checks.
The previous one-year record was set in 2013, when 21,093,273 background checks were performed. 2015 surged past that figure with 23,141,970 checks performed.
FBI figures show that December was the eighth straight month of record background checks in 2015. Beginning in May, every month witnessed a record number of background checks for that particular month.
For example, May 2015 witnessed more background checks than any May on record, June more than any June, July more than any July, and so on and so forth through the rest of the year.
Breitbart News previously reported that this huge surge in background checks was given an exclamation point on November 27, when Black Friday background checks “shattered [the] single day record.” According to The Trace, FBI spokesman Stephen Fischer said, “Black Friday [2015] shattered the single-day record with 185,345 background checks processed in a 24-hour period–or slightly more than two background-checks every second.”
The previous Black Friday record–just over 175,000 background checks–was was set in 2014. And the previous single-day record–approximately 177,000 checks–was set on December 21, 2012.
So 2015 witnessed an eight-month run of record-breaking checks, a single-day record for background checks, a record-breaking number of background checks on Black Friday, and a record number of background for the year as whole.
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.