The firearms industry had its best year ever as concerns over safety due to the coronavirus crisis, and political battles drove a 60% spike, according to the leading gun trade group.
In its final analysis of FBI background checks, the National Shooting Sports Foundation estimated gun sales at about 21 million, a huge 34% jump over the previous record set in 2016, another year where politics helped to drive sales.
Unique to last year was the surge in sales to first-time gun buyers, women, and blacks.
The group’s analysis said, “8.4 million people bought a firearm for the first time in 2020. That’s 40% of all purchases. This year’s buyer is increasingly diverse too. Forty percent of 2020’s buyers were women and the biggest increase of any demographic category was among African Americans, who bought guns at a rate of 58% greater than in 2019.”
FBI background checks hit a record 39.6 million. That includes checks for other purposes than just buying guns. In addition to the virus and protests in cities, sales were driven by President-elect Joe Biden’s promise of gun control and sales bans.
The year also saw a run on ammunition, which continues to be difficult to find.
The shortage has been so dire that it has sparked rumors that ammo companies are hiding their product. As a result, the head of one of the nation’s top makers, Federal Premium, recently posted a video denying claims it was slowing production. The shortage, the video said, is due to new demand.
Federal Premium’s Jason Vanderbrink gave a stunning example of the demand. If the 8.4 million new gun owners bought just two boxes of ammunition each, that would be 850 million cartridges.
Jason Hornady of Hornady Ammunition added in a separate video, promoted by NSSF, that ammo purchased today was probably boxed yesterday.
And according to industry experts, new safety concerns sparked by last week’s political protests in Washington, D.C., and around the nation have fueled another rush for guns and ammunition.
“Millions more Americans have woken up to the need for weapons and survival preparedness because they see that law and order is very fragile and can instantly vanish in any kind of a crisis,” said Drew Miller, who has established the Fortitude Ranch survival encampments in Colorado, Nevada, and West Virginia.
Mark Oliva also suggested that if supplies of guns and ammunition were available, the sales numbers would have been even higher.
“It is arguable that background check figures could be higher, had inventory been fuller,” he said. “Retail shelves are still sparse, telling us there is still a strong demand and that elevated levels of firearm sales could continue for some time. Pursuit of restrictions on gun rights or targeting of the firearm industry by the Biden administration will only signal that this will be an administration that won’t seek to support and protect American rights, but will cater to special interest groups that seek to disarm law-abiding Americans. Should that occur, I anticipate the growth of first-time gun buyers and overall firearm sales will be closer to what was seen in 2020 than in previous years.”
