The FBI processed a record 3.7 million gun background checks in March — more than any month previously reported, according to the agency’s latest data.
The spike’s timing suggests it may be driven by the coronavirus.
The Trump administration this week deemed gun shops “essential” businesses, allowing them to continue selling firearms to customers old and new even as other stores close their doors.
Five of the top 10 days with the highest number of background checks occurred last month, since the start of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) in 1998.
Mass social uncertainty often leads to an increase in gun buying, according to sociologists.
That’s even true following mass shootings.
The spike for March 2020 is unprecedented.
The dotted line labeled COVID-19 on the chart above marks Feb. 29, when the first death from the disease in the US, a male health worker in his fifties from Washington state, was recorded.
In the first half of March, retailers reported that they were experiencing a surge in gun sales, body armor, and other tactical gear driven by a desire by “preppers” to keep themselves safe in the face of uncertainty.
“I think with the way things have escalated quite quickly around the world and in the US in just the last couple of weeks, it’s very hard to tell what’s going to happen next,” said Kevin Lim, owner of the tactical gear retailer Bulletproof Zone.
Spikes in firearm and ammunition purchases and first-time gun buyers already have been reported in areas severely impacted by COVID-19, such as in Washington state, California and New York.
“In addition to the usual suspects who are adding to what they already own, there has been a sort of different profile of people coming in” to gun shops, said David Yamane, a Wake Forest sociology professor. “In this instance, people who are first-time gun owners or don’t fit the traditional demographic of older, white male.”
In a video tweeted by the NRA on March 21, an activist warns, “You might be stockpiling up on food right now” but “if you aren’t preparing to defend your property when everything goes wrong, you’re really just stockpiling for somebody else.”
Gun control groups decried Trump’s move keeping gun shops open, with Everytown for Gun Safety president John Feinblatt saying “you can’t shoot a virus.”