Some of the most popular items sold during this year’s Black Friday include things like electric toothbrushes, wireless headphones, and Legos. But Americans also bought a lot of guns. This year’s Black Friday gun sales numbers made it one of the busiest gun sales days in history.
The National Shooting Sport Foundation said the FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Checks System ran more than more than 711,000 background checks last week, including more than 192,000 on Friday alone. That’s enough to make Nov. 25, or Black Friday, the third busiest day on record for NICS.
The NICS data are raw, so it’s unclear what types of firearms were purchased. Also, just because a background check is run doesn’t mean a gun was sold. However, NICS is still the best way to track the number of gun sales in America.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, American gun ownership increased dramatically. NSSF said more than 5 million Americans became first-time gun owners in 2021.
According to a Pew research study, 40% of adults in the U.S. now live in a home with a gun present, and 30% of adults personally own one. While most people buying guns are white men, plenty of women and people of color are buying guns, as well. One-third of first time gun buyers last year were women.
The increase in gun ownership comes during a time of rising crime rates across the country and a renewed push by Democrats for a ban on so-called “assault weapons.” On Thanksgiving, President Biden said the idea of selling semi-automatic weapons is “sick.”