Background Checks for Gun Sales Shatter March Record

Background checks for gun sales shattered a record in March while celebrities and Parkland gun control activists pushed for more restrictions on Second Amendment rights.

The previous record for March was 2,523,265 background checks in 2016, but FBI numbers show there were 2,767,699 background checks in March 2018.

There were 19 consecutive months wherein background check records were broken during the Obama administration. That string of record months began with May 2015 and ended with November 2016. Every month a record was set regarding background checks for that particular month.

The number of background checks declined from record numbers by 500,000 in December 2016. But Breitbart News pointed out that even with the 500,000 decrease, December 2016 remained one of the top three Decembers of all time. Only December 2015 and 2012 surpassed it.

Background checks have not been moving at a record-breaking pace during the Trump administration, and this was largely believed to be the result of a lack of any real threat of gun control. Then came the February 14 Parkland school shooting–and the gun control activism that followed–and Americans had reason to fear more laws once more.

On March 28, 2018, Breitbart News predicted that the Parkland gun control activists would drive Americans toward the Second Amendment instead of away from it. Reports of the Second Amendment Foundation’s surge in membership, skyrocketing donations to the NRA PAC during the month of February, and now, record-breaking background checks in March, bolster that prediction.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.