Gun sales in the US hit record highs for the second year in a row — following a month that saw a mass shooting nearly every week.
The FBI has seen a mounting number of instant background checks, required for a licensed firearm store to sell a gun, throughout 2021, according to federal statistics.
The agency processed 4 million checks in January, 3.4 million in February and 4.7 million in March this year. Those numbers are increases from last year, when 2.7 million checks were conducted in January, 2.8 million in February and 3.7 million in March.
Six of the 10 days that saw the most background checks in the FBI’s history came in last month, including the highest volume in a week since 1998 — 1,218,002 checks from March 15 to 21.
All of the other weeks with the record-highest number of background checks occurred in 2020 and 2021, with the exception of one week in 2012.
The spike in sales follows a gruesome month of gun violence in the US, including eight people shot and killed in Atlanta-area massage parlors, 10 killed in a Boulder grocery store, four in a Southern California office complex and seven in a South Carolina home. Nine were gunned down at a Texas FedEx facility earlier this month.
Many among the millions buying guns were first-timers, according to industry data.
The National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearm industry trade group, found in a 2020 survey that 40 percent of customers who came in from January to April 2020 were first-time buyers, and of those, 40 percent were women. The most commonly purchased weapon was a semiautomatic handgun, according to the NSSF.
The newly acquired firearms may not be firing any time soon, though. The coronavirus pandemic has disrupted ammunition manufacturing and caused a nationwide shortage forecast to continue into next year.
The delays have also constrained gun inventory. Store owners told NPR they have been unable to keep enough guns in stock to meet demand.
