November NICS Gun Sales make 2021 Second Highest Year on Record

 

2021 has become the second highest year for firearm sales after the record set in 2020.

In November of 2021, there were about 1.51 million firearm sales conducted through the National Instant background Check System (NICS) and 2.69 million NICS checks. November of 2021 was the third highest November for gun sales and total NICS background checks since NICS was started in 1998.

There were about .758 million checks for handguns, .629 million checks for long guns, almost 55 thousand checks for "other" which might be handguns, long guns, or simple firearms, and often applies to receivers which have not yet been assembled into working firearms, and about 27 thousand checks which were for multiple firearms. 

In the estimation of the number of firearms sold, background checks for multiple items are multiplied by 2.5 to obtain an approximate number for sales.

From this correspondent's subjective experience, reading and watching of markets, it appears some firearms are becoming available; some ammunition is coming back into stores, some prices are dropping for some items. This indicates we are approaching rough parity in supply and demand for firearms and ammunition.

November and December are traditionally very high months for firearm sales. There have been about 16.7 million firearms sold through the NICS system in 2021 through the end of November.  That is a bit more than the about 16.3 million firearms sold in 2016, which was the second highest year until now. 

The trend is moderating. This correspondent expects the gun sales in December to be between 1.5 and 2 million firearms. The total for 2021 will be over 18 million firearms.

With 18 million firearms sold in 2021, the total stock of private firearms in the United States will have grown to  approximately 481 million. This estimate is calculated with the method pioneered by Newton and Zimring. It was extended by Gary Kleck in “Point Blank: Guns and Violence in America”.  The number is the cumulative addition of domestic manufacture, with the addition of imports and the subtraction of exports. 

The NICS checks are used to estimate the numbers in the current year. It is about a year and a half before the ATF numbers for manufacturing are released. The import/export data comes out after about a year. 

The demand for guns and ammunition has fallen just as the popularity of the Biden administration has fallen, along with falling trust in pandemic solutions and trust in government institutions such as the CDC, FBI, CIA, the Congress, the Media, Police, and the Justice system.

The demand for firearms and ammunition seems to be falling as the possibility of a Republican capture of one or both houses of Congress in 2022 increases.

Speculation: 

The demand for guns and ammunition is being driven by political uncertainty, rising crime rates, and increasing international uncertainty. 

The enemies of the United States of America are enjoying significant satisfaction in seeing the increasing chaos in the United States. 

In this correspondent's reading of history, the current situation is eerily similar to the late 1920s and early 1930s a century ago. There is a rising power (China vs Germany), a superpower weary of exerting power and uncertain of its moral justification (Pax Americana vs Pax Britannica), and rising technological and military innovation.

Uncertainty seems built into the near future. 

©2021 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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