Gun sales year-to-date in 2020 already surpass the total number of guns sold for all of 2019.
FBI figures provide an indicator of the surge in year-to-date gun sales, showing 28,826,449 National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) requests from January 2020 through September 2020, versus 28,369,750 for all of 2019.
WGNTV quotes National Shooting Sports Foundation public relations director Mark Oliva saying, “We have already surpassed all of the guns sold last year and we are well on our way to surpassing our record of 2016.”
Moreover, Oliva indicated that “40 percent of people buying guns in 2020 are first-time gun owners.”
Massachusetts’ Pioneer Valley Arms owner Kendall Knapik said, “I’ve been in the industry for about 10 years now, and this is probably the craziest we’ve ever seen it. It’s mostly shotguns, home-defense shotguns. Those were the first to sell out. Then, people moved to handguns once the shotgun manufacturers couldn’t keep up with the demand.”
On October 4, 2020, Breitbart News reported that September 2020 was the ninth consecutive month of record NICS background checks. That means January 2020 saw more NICS checks than any January in history, February 2020 saw more than any February in history, March 2020 than any March, and so on, all the way through September.
October 15, 2020, Breitbart News reported that Smith & Wesson stock was up over 130 percent for the year amid the run on guns, and Sturm Ruger Co.’s stock was up 42 percent.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News 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 at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.