April 2020 set another record for background checks conducted through the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Check System (NICS). The FBI NICS office conducted 2,911,128 background checks last month – a nearly 25% increase from the previous April, which had been the previous record high for the month of April.
April 2020 is now the fourth-busiest month in the history of the NICS office. Moreover, the week of April 13th through the 19th is the 9th busiest week in NICS history.
The more than 2.9 million checks run last month included: 984,872 checks related to the transfer of a handgun; 508,122 checks related to the transfer of a long gun; 68,746 checks related to “other” transfers; and, 34,779 checks related to multiple transfers in one transaction. There were also 311,568 permit checks and an additional 888,385 permit rechecks.
To be blunt: Americans set another record for background checks last month because we are a nation of law-abiding gun owners intent on keeping ourselves and our loved ones safe. Nearly three-million background checks to purchase a firearm or obtain a permit were conducted in just the thirty days of April. That is not a small group of “super gun owners” stockpiling thousands of firearms or some small subset of the general population.
Gun owners include all, from every race, gender, and creed. We – the gun owning community – reflect the overall population because we are a significant part of the overall population.
April continued the 2020 trend of record-setting months for the NICS office. January was (at the time) the sixth-busiest month ever and the busiest January by far. February saw even more checks than January, making it the third busiest month ever (at the time) and easily set the February record. March reset the all-time record with more than 3.7 million checks.
This is not an emerging trend. December 2019 saw more than 2.9 million NICS checks and was the second-busiest December ever. Before that, each of these months in 2019 had set the record for that respective month: April, May, June, August, September, October, and November. Of course, April 2020 and May 2020 shattered those respective records.
There were more NICS checks run in 2019 than in any other year, and there were more run in 2018 than any prior year except 2016. The four busiest years for the NICS offices have been the last four years. So far this year, there have been 32% more NICS checks run than there were in the same time period in 2019.
We suspect that we may see more NICS records broken this year. The anti-gun billionaires see these numbers, as do their “volunteers” and their bought-and-sold puppets. Do you think that Mike Bloomberg is going to take this as a sign that the American people support 2nd Amendment rights?
This is a man who spent more than a billion dollars on a shortsighted bid for the Democratic Presidential nomination that only lasted three months. Bloomberg and his allies – as well as those that depend on his funding for their campaigns – will double down as they try to eliminate gun rights in the United States.
We respect the millions of Americans who have decided to become law-abiding gun owners in 2020, but their rights may be revoked if they do not vote this November.
Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the “lobbying” arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Click here to follow NRA-ILA on Facebook.