The NICS checks total last month was 1,942,677. That’s a new record for May. The next highest was in 2016, 1,870,000. The National Instant Criminal background check totals continue to confound expectations. Instead of a continual fall during the Trump administration — the so-called Trump slump — the totals have remained surprisingly strong.

The May 2017 checks are just under 104% of the previous record, set in 2016. While the absolute number of checks for May are lower than the previous month, expected seasonal variations make May 2017 a record breaker.

It’s unclear what’s fueling the historic NICS numbers, but there are several possible causes. The increase is likely a combination of them. The violent post-election actions of leftist reactionaries, combined with fear that a Trump presidency could be overthrown by a media-driven “coup” could be motivations.

The violence on the left, as shown in Berkley, Portland, the District of Columbia, and San Francisco, has been well covered in the alternate media. The virulent hatred toward President Trump expressed in the establishment media is on display on a daily basis. And there have been numerous stories of people on the left buying firearms for the first time.

Fear of a firearms market glut brought about a drop in firearms prices, as retailers didn’t want to be caught with an unsalable inventory. Structural increases in the number of firearms owners may have increased the base level of sales.

Increasing optimism about the economy, a falling unemployment rate, and a record setting Dow Jones could be increasing sales of firearms as consumer confidence increases.

NICS checks, of course, aren’t solely made up of gun sales. They also include checks for carry permits. Carry permit numbers are at an all time high all over the United States. Both new permits and renewals are increasing. This builds in an increased number of NICS checks without necessarily increasing firearms sales. The trend in the states has been to reduce fees and remove impediments to both initial issuance of carry permits and their renewal.

The average ratio over the past 15 years is just under .6 firearm sales for each NICS check. 10,699,334 checks have been done in the first five months of 2017. If that ratio holds true, about 6.4 million guns were added to the private stock in 2017 so far.

©2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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27 COMMENTS

  1. I suspect this is in part driven by dismay at how poorly Trump has done as a champion for gun rights. If this is the best we can do for a candidate supposedly on our side, it really is time to stock up.

    • There could be other factors involved as well such as the current climate of the world. Public attacks are happening in Europe on a daily basis and a quick google search for “protest” yields pictures of black masked people beating and rioting in the streets of this very country. Things are polarized at the moment and it is pretty clear that given the political climate, many officials are simply telling law enforcement to go with a hands off approach to avoid the latest breaking news regarding police use of force.

      • Urban crime. People are worried about the spread of crime from the cities to the suburbs. There are of course other factors but concerns about safety are on the increase.

        Took a newbie to the range yesterday for her first time shooting. She asked some of the typical liberal media brainwashing type questions like “Why does anyone need 30 rounds for hunting?”. But she was an attentive learner and seemed to really enjoy it, plus she was a pretty darned good shot. I bet this won’t be her last time and might possibly be a future gun owner!

    • The single most important thing DJT can do for ‘gun rights’ is to appoint conservative justices. And he’s doing that.

      Thank your lucky stars that sh!t-bag Clinton didn’t win.

  3. Just bought a S&W M&P Sport II (NIB) for $460, and a new Ruger mk IV stainless for $440.

    I think I know why those NICS checks are ‘up’……..

    • I just bought a like new Gen. 1 Ruger LCP for $165. Dang, those Gen. 1 LCP’s have really dropped in price. Even though I already had a P3AT, I just couldn’t pass up an LCP for that low of a price.

  4. Well I did my bit for May. Bought another gun. ONE big reason was I got a DEAL. My favorite shop dropped 70bucks off to match Cabelas. Which I had no intention of patronizing…and the 2 other guns I’ve bought since November have been deals.

  5. as for myself, anything i buy this year will be an expression of the belief of how close we came to having that goofy witch at the helm.

  6. Another factor is leftists buying guns. They now see what they think is “government tyranny” and more than a few of them are responding.

    Now they know what it was like for us during 8 years of Obama’s “leading from behind”, and now they’re beginning to understand that you are your own defense against a corrupt government…

  7. “It’s unclear what’s fueling the historic NICS numbers…”

    $200 S&W Shield, $250 Walther PPS, a whole bunch of sub-$450 entry level ARs, heck even AK prices are down. I don’t think it’s a big mystery what’s fueling a lot of sales…

    I don’t think it’s just fear of a firearms market glut that has led to lower prices. There obviously is more supply than demand, or prices wouldn’t be staying this low for this long. If there weren’t a glut of guns in the pipeline, the low prices and apparent high sales volume (if NICS checks are an indicator) would have cleared them out by now.

  8. My LGS says the rebates are keeping sales going. I’ve been doing my part, but I’m only one man.

  9. “Leftist reactionaries” almost made my head explode. Sounds like McBain from the Simpsons: “we are under attack by commie nazis.”

    A person on the extreme right is a reactionary, the equivalent term for a leftist is “radical.”

    I know schools don’t teach history anymore but please try to learn what words mean before you use them. Or at least hire an editor with all that toe-fungus money.

    • The leftists are the ones who wish to restore the establishment to power. That makes them reactionaries.

      Trump and his supporters are attempting to overturn the established order of the Democrat party, the Establishment media, and (for the most part), the Republican party. That makes them the revolutionaries and the resistance.

      The left is constantly attempting to redefine words to win the debate without logic.

      Who was in charge before the last election? The left. Who wants to return to that system? The left. That makes them reactionaries.

      • I disagree with your (and Webster’s) definition. Therefore, you are a fascist.

      • Ah OK, I see what you’re trying to do. But that’s not how those terms work — one doesn’t flip back and forth from being a reactionary to a radical depending on the results of the latest election. For better or worse, they’re fixed in place for the situation during the French revolution where the reactionaries were fighting to reestablish the power of the traditional institutions of the ancien regime (the land-owning aristocracy, the church, etc.) and the radicals were trying to overthrow them. The whole left-right spectrum itself derives from the political groupings at that time.

        It’s just very confusing to readers if you use words in non-standard ways without clarifying beforehand. But I do thank you for at least understanding that it has nothing to do with “being reactive” which I see all the time. :facepalm:

        • Here’s an example to further clarify: the Jacobins were in power for some time, and alienated many with their extreme progressive policies including sending large numbers of people to the Guillotine. This inspired a reaction which came to power and sought to restrain these excesses, and ended the Reign of Terror. Those people who came to power were reactionaries and the regime they overthrew was composed of radicals. Fits the present situation pretty well, no? You can be a revolutionary of the right or the left but that is a separate axis from where you fall on the reactionary-radical spectrum (though things get a little dicey with “radical” since it is sometimes used for extremists on either end of the spectrum).

          The primary feature of being a reactionary is a desire to return society to some previous status quo. In the case of the Trump movement, it is explicitly based on this idea (e.g. “Make America Great AGAIN”, “we don’t win ANYMORE”) – and undoing many of the the radical changes in our society over the last few decades that have moved it away from traditional value systems, e.g. radical feminism, the prominence of homosexuality, loyalty to international finance instead of to own’s home country, etc.

          “Reactionary” is merely a term of description, not meant to be pejorative, though it is often used as such by political opponents (just as calling someone a “liberal” consists of fighting words in some circles).

          • The Jacobins were only in power for about two years. The “progressives” have been the dominant power in the United States, both Democrat and Republican, for nearly 70 years. Certainly since the election of FDR, and some would argue, Theodore Roosevelt. The Establishment media has clearly been on the side of “progressives” for the last 50 years, minimum. Trump supporters wish to overthrow that established order, so it is quite a bit different from the Jacobins.

            One could say, for example, that the Jacobins wished to “return” to an order that existed before the Church and the Monarchy ruled France as a near absolute monarchy. But that would not make the Jacobins reactionaries. Overturning a system that has been in place for several generations is revolutionary. Revolution, at its root, means a cyclic affair, so a “return” is almost inevitable. Yes, “progressives” do not consider their policies to “return” to something, but they are, in effect returning to systems where the government has much more power and far fewer constraints.

  10. Am not sure how closely the NICS check numbers correlate to actual firearm sales. With the exploding numbers of CHL/LTC/CCP holders there will be a lot of firearm sales where no NICS check will need to be undertaken. Since getting mine, I have purchased 4 firearms (Redhawk .44 Mag, Sig P938, S&W Bodyguard .380 & Aero Precision AR lower) so not having to undergo a NICS check is a nice timesaver!

    • In my state (and I think most states), you still have to get a NICS check when buying a gun, even if you have a CCP. One good thing in my state is that you don’t have any waiting period for a handgun if you have a CCP. Yesterday, I saw a couple of LCP’s at my local gun store for $165. A few minutes later, I walked out with one.

  11. It’s high because people are worried about living under the Trump fascist regime.

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