November NICS Keeps on Track for Second Highest Year

The 2018 November of National Instant background Check System (NICS) numbers have been reported by the FBI. The NICS checks for November of 2018 were 2,393,043. That makes 2018 the second highest November on record. The record was set in 2016, with 2,561,281.

The number of NICS done this year is already the third highest since NICS checks were started in 1998. The total at the end of November, 2018, is  23,638,551. Only 2016 and 2017 had higher totals for the whole year.

December is usually the highest month for NICS checks. There are only three years where this was not true. Those were 2008, 2013, and 2014.

NICS checks are highly correlated with worries about further infringements on the Second Amendment by the federal government. In 2008, it was worry about the election of Barrack Obama. In 2013, it was concern over his re-election. In 2014, it was concern over the statements President Obama made in his push for more infringements.

I expect over 2.5 million NICS checks in December of 2018.  The Media are starting to push for more infringements on the Second Amendment from their colleagues in the House of Representatives.  That will increase the worry level for some people who are considering purchasing a firearm. The worry of infringements combined with the holiday will push them to make the purchase.

2.5 million plus NICS checks in December will raise the total NICS for the year to over 26 million, just in between the totals for 2016 and 2017, making the 2018 NICS year the second highest on record.

The number of NICS checks is not as highly correlated with firearm sales as it used to be. A large number of NICS checks are done for carry permits and permit rechecks.

In November of 2018, about 1,050,000 of the NICS checks were done for permits and permit rechecks. The vast majority of the permit and permit rechecks were in two states. Illinois and Kentucky accounted for over 650,000 of the permit and permit rechecks.

We will not know the actual number of firearms added to the private stock in the United States until a year and a half from now. The BATF tracks the licensed manufacture of firearms, and the legal import and export of them.  They do not include firearms manufactured for the military.  Because of concerns for intellectual property rights in the data, numbers of firearms manufactured are not reported to the public for a year.

It is likely tens to hundreds of thousands of firearms are legally and illegally made without a license in the United States each year. Those numbers are not counted, not known, and not included in the official BATFE numbers. The numbers of guns illegally imported or exported are similarly unknown.

The assumption that the unknown numbers of guns manufactured is approximately the same as guns lost due to destruction or wear, allows an estimation of the total number of guns in private hands in the United States.

At the end of 2018, the number of private guns will be about 430 million.

About .15 percent of firearms are used in violent crime each year. That is not 15% , not 1.5%, but .15%.  This about one out of every 600 firearms.


©2018 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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